


i need you (to be free)

by marveal



Series: rescue me from the waves [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Hydra Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter was raised by Hydra, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Rape Recovery, Self-Harm, Sexual Abuse, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marveal/pseuds/marveal
Summary: “There’s really no point to all of this, Tony,” Bruce says. “He’s a wanted HYDRA assassin. They’ll send him to the raft before they even ask him his name.”It would be useless to try and save that kid. Fifteen years old, thirteen years of which spent with HYDRA, there is no way the kid is anything other than messed up.The kid deserves a chance. Peter deserves a chance.If SHIELD won’t give him that, than Tony sure as hell will.or, when SHIELD catches word of another Winter Soldier situation they call in the Avengers to extract the threat. What they didn't know, is that the threat was a fifteen year old boy who had been suffering under HYDRA's hands for years.*CAN BE READ AS A STAND ALONE!!! DO NOT HAVE TO READ WHOLE SERIES!!**
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: rescue me from the waves [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300835
Comments: 295
Kudos: 979





	1. early morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!!! I asked what you wanted and this is what you wanted!!! (i will be making the mj/peter one very soon) 
> 
> this is another hydra!peter fic. It is a part of a series, but can be read as a stand ALONE. this is a "what if tony found him at age 15" fic, whereas the other parts involve peter being found as a 6 year old. very different situations, esp. with how long peter has been found. 
> 
> if you have read darkness and it's sequels, welcome back! if you haven't, welcome!! 
> 
> MAJOR TW FOR THIS FIC: child abuse, in ALL kinds: physical, mental, emotional, sexual. It deals with the recovery from this from a character that is very mentally unstable and is unable to come to terms with the abuse. tread lightly and with caution. 
> 
> ^^ as of 05/07/20 this fic has now been given an official warning of rape/non-con, because while no sexual assault happens directly, there is a significant amount of mention to previous sexual abuse and must be read with CAUTION.

Tony stumbled his way to the conference room as gracefully as he is capable of doing at four in the morning. He is sporting a mug of steaming coffee that he managed to snag from the kitchen before making his way down here.

The Avengers’ alarm had blasted throughout the tower just ten minutes ago, which normally meant that the city of New York was once again in peril. This time, however, upon opening his eyes from the sleep he had only just been able to fall into, Tony was greeted with a message from Nick Fury, ordering the team to meet in the Tower’s conference area.

“Nice of you to join us, Stark,” Fury says when Tony opens the door and quickly takes the only remaining seat at the table. The Director himself is standing by the window, hovering over the group of heroes.

“Charming as always, Director,” Tony greets him back. “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait until early afternoon?”

“This,” Fury answers, directing the man’s attention to a hologram which is playing in the middle of the table. The footage appears to be of a security camera, and is relatively blurry, but not enough so that Tony is unable to make out what is playing on the screen.

The figure on the screen is dressed in what looks to be an all-black body suit that is a few sizes too big, along with a mask that covers the majority of his face, white lines covering it in a web-like pattern.

The person stand eerily still in the frame for a few moments, and Tony sees that the footage is being sped up. After a few more seconds, movement is seen on the other side of the hologram,and Tony sees a woman walk into the room. Upon seeing the figure, the woman holds out her hand in… fear? Surrender?

The figure continues to stand in the centre on the room, staring at the woman. She appears to be talking to them, though when she realizes that is pointless, the woman quickly turns on her heel and attempts to run out of the building.

In the span of half a second, the figure has gone from completely still to leaping across the room in a move that Tony has only seen replicated by none other than Black Widow, and the masked figure is quickly snapping the woman’s neck.

The woman’s body falls to floor, and her murderer stands once again goes still, staring at the lump at their feet. They remain there for a few more minutes, before something off camera catches their attention, and they are slowly walking away, jumping out the window and out of the apartment, away from the eyes of the camera.

“Who was that woman?” Steve asks from his spot at the head of the table.

“Agnes Elmin,” Fury responds. “Former HYDRA agent.”

“Former?” Clint asks.

“She did ground routines, didn’t see much action,” Fury said. “Until she married a commanding officer. Suddenly she had power, she had access to things she hadn’t before.”

“Scared her off,” Natasha guesses. “She couldn’t face the things she saw HYDRA doing.”

“Of a sort,” Fury confirms. “She offered intel for SHIELD’s protection in order to escape their grasps.”

Tony snorts. “Nice work, Director.”

Fury sends a glare in Tony’s direction. “HYDRA had a damn tracker implanted in her, which she failed to report.”

“You obviously didn’t call us all here for a dead woman,” Clint observes. “Who’s the killer? He HYDRA or a hire?”

Fury rewinds the holographic footage and zooms in on a symbol along the suit’s back. HYDRA’s symbol.

“Ever since The Winter Soldier story got out, rumours have been flying around every day about potential threats HYDRA have lingering in their bases. All as crazy as the next, most detected to be fake.”

“Most?” Steve says. “Who is this guy?”

“They call him ‘The Spider,’” Fury reports. “Not much is known, and until today was thought to be a fairy tale like the rest.”

“What do we know?” Natasha questions.

“He’s been trained in the same level of combat that those in the Red Room were, perhaps higher.”

“Enhanced?” Steve guesses.

“Unknown,” Fury reports. “They say he’s been active for at least three years, taking out minor level threats.”

“Is he really an Avenger level threat?” Tony asks. “Taking out minor threats, isn’t that a job for the agents of SHIELD?”

“Too little is known about his potential danger level to risk the lives of the agents,” Fury says. “When a threat is compared to the Winter Solider, we must take the proper measures of extraction.”

“Do we know where he is located now?” Steve asks.

“Elmin’s intel reports of one HYDRA base within the radius of her apartment that The Spider would have been able to travel to by the time you watched the footage.”

“Alright,” Steve says. “Send us the coordinates, we’ll head out in five.”

The rest of the team gives their affirmatives, and they quickly suit up and head onto the Quinjet.

Upon sitting down in the co-pilot’s chair, Tony leans his head down and groans. He looks over to Bruce, who is sitting in the pilots chair.

“You coming in with us?”

“No,” Bruce says. “No, I’m only here for worst case scenarios.”

“Lucky goose,” Tony says. “It’s way too early to be taking down anything.”

Bruce snorts. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“It still _is night,_ Brucie Bear,” Tony replies. Bruce simply smiles, shaking his head slightly as he takes control of the jet.

The next hour Tony spends in and out of a doze, praying to the science gods that this mission will go by quick and easy. By the time they arrive in the woods a few miles away from the base, he has woken up enough that he can focus on the task.

“Tony,” Cap calls out. “You fly ahead, try and look for any immediate threats. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Got it, Cap,” Tony affirms, allowing his suit to fall into place around him. “See you on the other side.” He quickly flies off in the direction of the base.

HYDRA was clearly not warned about the Avengers’ visit, which tells Tony that this will be an easy fight. Them not being aware of their arrival means less men, less firepower, and less time to take the base.

There are four men guarding the front of the building, meanwhile about twenty-five stand along and inside the guard towers. They all seem to catch sight of Tony at the same time, and his suit immediately starts being shot at.

“Thirty men outside, give or take,” Tony says into his comm.

“Can you take them all down?” Cap replies. “We’re right behind you.”

“Already ahead of you, Cap,” Tony replies, sending his repulsors out and taking down the men.

“Uh, guys,” Bruce’s voice comes through the comms. “I’m interfering a mass distress signal, but there was about a thirty second delay before I was able to. They have backup coming.”

“Right,” Cap says. “We’ll stay out here and ward off them. Iron Man, you go in and try to locate our guy. I have Widow coming in to help.”

“Can do, Cap,” Tony says, flying to one of the guard towers to enter the building from there.

The door is open, the guards either not caring or not knowing to lock it behind them. Tony quickly gains access to the building.

“J, what are you seeing?”

“Limited life signals, Sir,” JARVIS responds.

Tony hums. “It seems even HYDRA agents manage to get Sunday’s off. Maybe I should reconsider a career change.”

“Might I suggest a school teacher, Sir?” JARVIS says. “You also get summers and holidays off.”

“Is it worth it, though?” Tony asks. “To have to deal with snotty nosed, loud, smelly children for nine to ten months?”

“Perhaps not, Sir,” JARVIS says. He lights up an area ahead to Tony’s left, where there is a single life form detected beyond the door.

“Alrighty,” Tony says. The door is heavy metal and locked with several different codes, though after a few minutes Tony is able to hack into them, and the door is swinging open.

Tony waits a few moments at the door, repulsor raised in warning, before stepping through. He looks around to what looks like a bare medical room, nothing in the room but a small, hard cot with a body splayed across is.

“Speaking of children…,” Tony mumbles, focusing on the sleeping face in front of him. The kid looks to be in the early stages of puberty, perhaps thirteen years old. He is wearing no shirt, only slightly baggy black cargo pants. His hair falls into waves over his forehead.

On the back of his neck lies what Tony first believed to be a tattoo, but at closer look seems to be a third degree _burn scar_ of the HYDRA logo. A scar in the exact same location it had been seen on the suit of The Spider…

“This can’t be our guy,” Tony says. “This is a _kid.”_

 _“_ If I may, Sir,” JARVIS says. “His physique perfectly matches that from the footage.”

“He’s a _kid_ ,” Tony repeats. “Take a scan, J.”

JARVIS is silent for a moment. “Several broken ribs, in various states of healing. A fractured collarbone, almost completely healed. Blood levels detect an alarming amount of benzodiazepines.”

“Is he overdosing?” Tony asks.

“No signs of overdose,” JARVIS answers. “The quantity of the sedatives mixed with his body’s reaction indicate either a severe dependancy, or enhancement.”

“Or both,” Tony says.

He takes one more glance at the kid, noticing that he is not cuffed to anything. Tony wonders if that is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it’s good that extreme measures aren’t being used on a child, but knowing HYDRA, it could mean that the boy is willing enough in this that there isn’t a need to use them.

“Left wing of the building is clear,” Cap’s voice comes through the comm. “No sign of The Spider.”

“Outside is clear,” Hawkeye muffled voice responds. “Any guards on the inside?”

“Nat’s on that,” Cap says.

“I think I found our guy, Rogers,” Tony joins in.

“What is your location?”

“It’s all good,” Tony says. “Kid’s drugged up pretty good. He’ll be out for awhile. I’ll bring him to the jet.”

“Tony,” Steve warns. “He could be enhanced.”

“With the amount of ‘benzos in him, he is,” Tony replies. “He isn’t waking up anytime soon.”

“I’ll meet you outside,” Cap says regardless. “Widow is sweeping the place.”

“Roger, Rogers,” Tony says.

“Wait,” Clint says. “Did you say ‘kid?’”

“How young are we talking, Tony?” Steve says.

“You’ll see when I get him to the jet,” Tony replies.

“Make it fast,” Cap orders while Tony mutes his comm.

“Alright, J,” he begins. “Let’s, uh… pick him up?”

Tony places his arms around the kid, being mindful of the injuries JARVIS reported to him. The kid’s pretty light, and the measurement JARVIS flashes on the screen in front of Tony confirms it.

He is just stepping outside the room when he notices a slight movement in his arms.

“That’s not possible,” Tony whispers. “Even Cap would be out for hours with that much in his system.”

The figure in his arms, while still remaining a dead weight, squints his eyes open slightly. The kid’s pupils are dilated to the point that Tony is only just able to detect a small ring of brown. Tony drops the helmet, hoping that in seeing a human being won’t frighten the kid as much as seeing Iron Man would.

The boy mumbles slightly, looking up at Tony without truly seeing him. “Wheres’it?”

“Um,” Tony says. “Go back to sleep.”

“‘Kay, Bubba,” the boy says, before closing his eyes and seemingly falling right back to sleep.

Letting out a large breath that he didn’t realizing he was holding, Tony continues back to the quinjet.

Steve is waiting outside for him as he said he would be, hands resting on his hips. Bruce must have flown the jet closer to the base once they cleared all the guards, as it is right outside the base.

“Jesus,” Steve says upon taking a look at the boy. “You really weren’t kidding.”

“No,” Tony confirms.

“I can take him,” Steve offers.

“I got it,” Tony says, continuing his walk toward the jet. The ramp is already down, and Bruce’s face greets him at the top.

“Should we move him to a cot?” Bruce says.

The two of the move to the back of the quinjet, where a permanent makeshift medbay is set up, in case any Avenger needs immediate medical attention before they can get to the closest hospital. Bruce pulls out one of the cots, and Tony places the kid on it as gently as possible.

“We should take a blood sample,” Tony says. “Take a look at it, see how far his enhancement goes. Maybe find something about who he is and where he came from.”

Bruce nods. “I can do that. Did you see just how much benzodiazepines was in his system?”

Tony shakes his head. “JARVIS can get a reading but not a distinct number. Well enough to kill me three times over, at least.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows. “That’s even more than Steve can handle.”

“He woke up,” Tony tells him. “Just for a moment, but he was awake.”

“Fascinating,” Bruce says. “Was he lucid?”

“No,” Tony says. “Thought I was somebody else.”

“Was he… frightened?”

“I think he was too out of it to feel _anything,”_ Tony replies. “I can’t be sure.”

Bruce nods. “Well, I can send a few blood samples to the lab and the results should be in by the time we arrive back at the tower.”

“Perfect,” Tony says. “What I need right now is some damn sleep.”

Once Nat returns from pillaging the base, Tony moves over to the pilots seat and takes off for the tower.

He isn’t going to sleep today.

* * *

When they arrive back at the tower, Fury orders that the kid be placed in a secure cell. Steve transports the sleeping boy to the cell while Tony and Bruce step into the lab to look at the results of the blood samples.

Now, Tony isn’t any kind of expert in biology, especially not genetics, but it takes one look at the kid’s genetic structure to see that something is not right.

Bruce, on the other hand, seems genuinely fascinated. “This is… I’ve never seen anything like this before, Tony.”

“What are we seeing, exactly?” Tony asks. “It’s a lot different than Cap’s.”

“Tony, this is…,” Bruce says. “This is _extreme.”_

“I can see that,” Tony replies.

“JARVIS,” Bruce requests. “Can you pull up the map of Steve’s genetic structure alongside this, please?”

“Certainly,” the AI responds.

Steve’s coding flies on the screen as requested, and Tony looks at the two structures.

“See, _that’s_ what I expected,” Tony mumbles.

“That’s because Steve’s coding is still _human,”_ Bruce explains. “It’s modified, yes, but it simply amplifies the human genomes.”

“This isn’t _human?”_

“It’s… It _is,”_ Bruce says. “But it’s also not.”

“Explain,” Tony says, waving his hand.

“See this coding, right here?” Bruce says, pointing to certain lines along the helix on both Steve’s and the kid’s. “Those are the genes, _human_ genes, but the protein composition, it’s something I’ve never seen in a human before. The proteins match what you would see in…”

“A spider?” Tony guesses. “It is what they call the kid.”

“They… successfully crossed species,” Bruce says as if he cannot believe what he is saying.

“Maybe they didn’t though,” Tony says. “Maybe the kid was born like that. A mutant?”

Bruce shakes his head. “I’ve studied the genetic coding of mutants, Tony, and while they vary from humans, it simply affects the individual gene, not the _entire_ structure. This boy is… a scientific _miracle.”_

 _“_ Right,” Tony drawls out. “Who also kills people for HYDRA. And is a _child.”_

Bruce’s expression turns somber. “You’re right. I’m sorry, this is just… this is incredible.”

Tony shakes his head. “No worries, Brucie. It’s always fun to see you this excited. Think you would be able to isolate the spider stuff, try and see if there is a match to any parents? Missing child’s reports?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Bruce says.

The man explains the process of extracting the DNA samples they need, and they quickly have JARVIS pull up any relatives they can find with a match. JARVIS skims through hospital records, police files, until finally a match is met when skimming through old SHIELD employee records.

On the screen, two faces with a giant red _deceased_ covering them pop up that are a fifty-fifty match to the kid’s genetics. Richard and Mary Parker, both SHIELD employees. Mary worked as a low status agent while Richard worked in, of all places, the genetics lab.

The parents.

“I knew Richard,” Bruce says. “He studied cross-species genetics.”

“Ironic,” Tony snorts.

“I don’t think so,” Bruce says. “He… his work focused on _arachnids,_ on the similarities their DNA has to humans, how we could potentially cross species to create a ‘better human’. I thought it was _theoretical.”_

 _“_ You think he did this to the kid?”

“I… I doubt it, Tony,” Bruce says. “He was a good man.”

“Everyone is a good man until they aren’t,” Tony mumbles, skimming through the file. “J, got a death report?”

“Plane crash, Sir,” JARVIS says. “Richard, Mary, and their two year old son Peter were on a flight when it unexpectedly went down.”

“Unexpectedly,” Tony says sarcastically. “No survivors?”

“The body of Richard Parker was found, Sir,” JARVIS informs. “Mary and Peter are considered to be deceased at well.”

“I’m looking at evidence that little Peter didn’t die,” Tony says. “Any living relatives?”

“Benjamin Parker is the only relative listed, Sir,” JARVIS says. “Richard’s older brother, who passed away last year due to a gunshot wound he received during a robbery.”

“Alright,” Tony says.

He does the math. The plane crash happened when Peter was two, and that was thirteen years ago. Peter is fifteen, now, a few years older than Tony’s previous prediction.

“There’s really no point to all of this, Tony,” Bruce says. “He’s a wanted HYDRA assassin. They’ll send him to the raft before they even ask him his name.”

Tony stares at the screen in front of him, which now presents a photo of a young toddler displaying a toothy grin. He is just able to find a resemblance to the sleeping boy he had briefly met while carrying him off to the jet. It would be useless to try and save that kid. Fifteen years old, thirteen years of which spent with HYDRA, there is no way the kid is anything other than _messed up._

 _“_ You’re right,” Tony says. “But he deserves a name other than ‘The Spider.’”

The kid deserves a chance. _Peter_ deserves a chance.

If SHIELD won’t give him that, than Tony sure as hell will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how was that?? i know nothing about science besides what i learned in grade 11 and 12 bio so i'm sorry if it's wrong. it's the mcu anything is possible. 
> 
> let me know what you think!!


	2. fast heartbeats and chicken broth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys i know i said the chapter would be last week but then the covid-19 shut down my entire life and i had to change my entire schedule sorry!!! 
> 
> i haven't figured out a schedule for when these chapters will come out, so please be patient!! i will never abandon this story!!

Peter, according to everybody Tony has spoken with, is an outright nightmare.

Not because he is violent, nor aggressive in any form. No, that isn’t what it is. The kid isn’t doing _anything._

Ever since Peter had woken up from his drugged sleep, once he had taken a few quick glances around the cell he resided in, vibranium cuffs chaining him to the chair they had placed his body in, the boy’s head had moved forward, his gaze soon following. And he didn’t move.

He must have known something was off, that he was no longer with HYDRA. He had looked forward and ignored any pass made at him. Fury, Steve, even Natasha. He had not budged.

Peter simply stared ahead, not indicating he had heard any of their attempts to talk to him.

Tony had not been present for any of this. Him and Bruce had remained down in the lab for the remainder of the day, testing theories and possible replications of whatever happened to Peter in order to make him this way. Not to recreate it, no, but to understand it enough that they can figure out the things that Peter’s enhancement requires, such as more sustenance and a higher dosage of drugs.

When Tony arrived at the observation room of the cell, Fury is once again in the room, trying to get Peter’s attention.

“If you don’t cooperate, you’re getting sent straight to the Raft,” Fury threatens. “You know what that is? It’s a prison. A prison where nobody can escape, and only the worst of the worst go. They’ll eat you alive in there.”

Peter shows no reaction other than a long, slow blink.

“As if that’ll scare him,” Clint mutters, watching from behind the one-way glass. “I’m sure HYDRA wasn’t a getaway vacation.”

“You don’t know that,” Steve says. “We don’t know if he’s willing in any of this, and if he is, then we have a problem.”

“He’s not acting like the HYDRA goons we normally come across, Cap,” Clint says back. “He looks overwhelmed.”

Steve’s brows furrow together. “He doesn’t look like that to me. He looks more like he doesn’t care about anything.”

“Common tactic,” Natasha pipes up, keeping her eyes planted on the kid inside the cell. “Don’t let them know how you’re feeling, especially if you don’t know who they are. Just look at his eyes.”

“That’s the problem,” Steve says. “His eyes look dead.”

“Deeper,” Nat replies. “Clint’s right. He’s confused, overwhelmed with the change in scenery, especially after he went to sleep there and woke up here.”

“Do we even know if he understands English?” Clint asks.

“He does,” Tony says from behind them. After they all look at him in confusion, he shrugs. “He woke up for a second while I was transporting him to the jet.”

Steve blinks. “And you didn’t think to mention this to any of us?”

“It was only a second, jeez,” Tony says.

“Did he mention anything?”

“No,” Tony said. “He was drugged up, called me ‘Bubba’. That’s it.”

“We can work with that,” Natasha says. “We have a name.”

“A dumbass name,” Clint mutters. “Who the hell calls themselves that? That’s a nickname you give a dog.”

“I’ll work on tracking him down,” Nat says, ignoring Clint. She motions for Clint to follow her, and the two of them leave the small observation room.

Tony and Steve remain in the room, watching Fury try and interrogate Peter.

“You think you would be more compassionate about all of this, Cap,” Tony says. “As your pal went through the same thing.”

Steve stiffens at the mention of his friend. “It’s different, Tony. Bucky was taken at twenty-eight, he… he had memories and… and a _life,_ before. He has something to try and recover. If you’re right, and this is Peter Parker, then… He’s been trained to kill his entire life.”

“So was Nat,” Tony says. “She seems pretty okay, now.”

“Why are you trying to defend this kid so much, Tony?” Steve asks.

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?” Tony defends. “Protect the people who have nobody in their corner?”

“Yes,” Steve says. “But this boy clearly doesn’t want our help.”

Tony looks back to the boy in the cell, still gazing forward and ignoring Fury’s angry warnings.

“Maybe he doesn’t know he needs help,” Tony mutters. “Does that mean we shouldn’t give it to him?”

“We can’t wait for him forever, Tony,” Steve says. “He’s a wanted criminal who works for a terrorist organization. He has information.”

“He’s a _kid.”_

“So?” Steve says. “It’s unfortunate, yes, but at the end of the day, we don’t know his motives. You need to be careful.”

“Says the man who allowed the Winter Soldier to beat him half to death.”

“Bucky’s my friend,” Steve defends.

“Yeah,” Tony scoffs. “Well, clearly Peter doesn’t have anyone like that.” Before Steve can reply, Tony turns to leave the observation room. “I’m going to get him something to eat. He’s been in there for hours.”

* * *

By the time Tony gets back, Fury has left Peter’s cell and both himself and Steve have vanished, leaving Peter alone.

Tony hesitates at the door, wondering if it were safe to go in. Sure, Peter is only a kid, but Steve does have a point. They have no idea where this kid’s loyalties are, if he was treated well with HYDRA.

Still, the kid needs to eat. Bruce and Tony had ran tests on Peter’s DNA, and among several shocking discoveries, one of the major things they had found was that his metabolism runs even faster than Steve’s, meaning he needs to eat even more than the man himself.

 _No wonder the kid’s malnourished,_ Tony thinks.

Letting out a deep sigh, Tony makes his way into the room, watching as Peter’s deep brown eyes shoot over to him for a moment, before looking away.

“Uh, hey, kid,” Tony says. “I figured you might be hungry.” He raises the bowl in his hands, a simple chicken broth, because he was unsure of what the kid would be able to handle.

Peter glances at the bowl, and his eyebrows furrow together slightly, though he remains quiet.

“I, um, kind of forgot you were cuffed down, so… do I, do I feed you, or something? That sounds weird.”

Peter’s eyes widen as Tony walks closer with the bowl. He doesn’t show any kind of fear, however, only shock, so Tony continues.

“So, is it okay if I… feed you?” Tony asks. “I would remove the cuffs but I don’t think Fury would like that.”

Peter looks up at him, eyes still wide as saucers, and nods slightly.

“Okay, well then, uh, open up, I guess,” Tony mumbles. He picks up the spoon and waits for Peter’s mouth to open slightly before he brings it towards the boys mouth. It takes Peter a few moments to figure out to actually take the liquid off of the spoon and swallow it, but he gets there.

Tony, feeling extremely uncomfortable, tries to avoid making eye contact as Peter eats. Nonetheless, he can’t help but see the look that the boy is giving him, a look Tony cannot place. It sort of resembles the look that teenage girls give him when they ask for his autograph, only more… desperate? Longing? He shakes that thought away, continuing feeding the kid.

When the broth is finished, Tony puts the spoon back in the bowl and places it to the side. He looks back at the kid to see him staring directly at Tony’s chest. Peter’s finger is tapping onto the arm of the chair, where it is being pinned down. When Tony focuses hard enough, the quick beat seems to be in time with his own heartbeat.

“You can… You can hear my heartbeat?” Tony asks.

“Fast,” the kid mumbles.

“Right,” Tony says. His heartbeat is going quite fast, but that is because of both his unease with feeding the kid and being so close to a kid who could snap his neck like a popsicle stick.

“Spider’s.”

“I’m sorry?” Tony asks.

“Bum-bum-bum,” Peter mutters quickly. “Spider’s.”

“Your heart?” Tony asks. Peter nods once. “Is it always fast?” Another nod.

“Oh,” Tony says. He wants to clarify that his heartbeat isn’t always fast, and he wonders if Peter’s is like that because of his enhancement or if he is just scared or on edge all of the time, causing the exhilaration.

“Is that what they call you?” He says instead. “Spider?” He knew that was the kid’s field name, though Tony had hoped that they had given him a name outside of that.

Peter’s eyebrows furrow together as he nods slightly.

“Do you have another name?” Tony asks. “A name you had before you were with HYDRA?”

“Always HYDRA,” Peter mumbles. “Always The Spider.”

“Well, uh…,” Tony hesitates, unsure if he should be telling Peter that they are aware of his identity, especially when the boy does not know it himself. On one hand, telling the boy his name and his background could be beneficial, could help him understand that they only want to help him. On the other, telling him could prove to be an awful decision, especially if he truly is loyal to HYDRA under his own free will.

Tony thinks about he would do, how he would want to know if people had information about his life that he didn’t know. Especially if it was his own damn _name._

“Your name is Peter,” Tony suddenly blurts out.

The kid looks up at Tony from where his gaze had been planted on the man’s chest. He isn’t making eye contact, his eyes flitting from Tony’s ear to his forehead, but he doesn’t look _afraid._ That concerns Tony. Shouldn’t someone who had been used by HYDRA be afraid?

He hasn’t responded to Tony’s information apart from looking up, and he is doing a fantastic job of hiding any kind of emotion he may be feeling. Maybe that’s why Tony isn’t able to sense any fear on him. Maybe he doesn’t want Tony to know he’s afraid. If that’s the case, than it’s just as possible he’s hiding an intense hatred towards him…

“Peter Parker, in full.” Tony says. “Well, Peter _Benjamin_ Parker, but nobody really… uses middle names. Do you know that?”

Peter shakes his head slightly.

“Do you know that your name is Peter?” Tony says.

“The Spider,” Peter responds, shaking his head again. “Always The Spider.”

Though he says this, the kid’s mind looks as if it were going a mile a minute. He is clearly thinking about _something,_ trying to remember, maybe? Tony isn’t sure if the name had rung any bells in the kid’s memory, or if the boy is simply trying to figure out what the hell Tony is talking about.

“Right. Well, I’m not going to call you that. You’re a kid.”

Peter shakes his head again. “Big.”

“You’re big?” Tony asks for clarification. At Peter’s nod, the man scoffs. “Yeah, because telling me that you are a big boy is a great way to convince me that you’re _not_ a kid.”

Peter looks awfully confused once again, making Tony realize that the kid probably isn’t near socialized enough to understand the way that children act, and that he is acting like one.

“Is it okay if I call you Peter?” Tony asks. “I’m not calling you _The Spider,_ but if you don’t like Peter, we can pick something else out, yeah?”

Peter blinks and is silent for a moment, processing what Tony has just said to him. After a few more seconds, the kid nods slightly and looks up to Tony with wide eyes, making eye contact for the first time since Tony entered the room.

The kid has a nice shade of brown to his eyes, a rich, deep brown that allows you to see into the kid’s soul. They allow him to understand what Natasha had been saying earlier.

On a single glance, the boy looks as if he could not care less about anything that is happening to him, though beyond those depths Tony can see what Peter seems to be hiding from the world. The fear, the uncertainty, and… something else that he cannot place.

Tony clears his throat, realizing that he had been silently looking into the kids eyes for too long to be normal. “Well, unless you need something, I’ll be on my way.”

“Yes, Sir,” Peter says, eyes falling back to Tony’s chest.

“You don’t have to call me ‘Sir’,” Tony says desperately. “Call me Tony, yeah? That’s my name.”

“Yes, Tony,” the boy says in the same tone that he had held before.

“Buddy, I’m not your boss here, okay?” Tony says. “Nobody wants you to get hurt, we won’t treat you the way HYDRA did.”

“HYDRA brings order,” Peter mumbles, straight from the script Tony has heard countless HYDRA goons recite over the years, only less… grammatical. Clearly the boy is either lacking in his vocabulary, or he has been trained to use as little words as possible when he speaks. Tony assumes either could be true, knowing HYDRA likes to use the motto that it is better to be seen but not heard.

“I know they told you that, but none of it is true,” Tony says. “I know it’s hard to understand, but hopefully some day you’ll get it, yeah? For now, just sit tight and try and answer the questions they ask you. It’ll be really helpful.”

“Yes, Sir,” Peter says.

Tony sighs, but doesn’t mention the slip. He smiles at the kid slightly, before picking up the bowl from where he had discarded it, and walks towards the door.

“I’ll see you later, Peter.”

He walks out the door, but hesitates inside the observation room, watching as Peter stares forward in the same distant gaze he always has, though his lips mouth the same thing over and over.

_Peter._

* * *

“What the _hell_ did you think you were doing, going in there _alone?”_

“I’m sorry,” Tony says sarcastically. “Were you not aware of the vibranium cuffs that were pinning him to that chair?”

“He’s _dangerous,”_ Fury says.

“I haven’t seen that side of him,” Tony says. “Have you?”

“He’s credited with at least a dozen assassinations, Stark.”

“So is the Winter Solider, and the last I’ve heard, Captain Rogers got him pardoned under the notion of torture, dehumanization, and coercion.”

“That’s different and you know it,” Fury basically growls at him.

“Please enlighten me on the _how,_ Director,” Tony says. “Kid was taken against his will, experimented on, most likely tortured, forced to carry out HYDRA’s bidding.”

“We don’t know his motives,” Fury says. “He could be waiting for a chance to take the Avengers out.”

“He didn’t even try to bit me once,” Tony says. “Though he was most likely starving, so maybe he just didn’t want to risk being starved any longer.”

“You aren’t to go back in the cell without direct orders to,” Fury says.

“Last time I checked, Director Fury,” Tony begins. “You are not my boss. I am in no way employed by SHIELD, though I graciously allow you to use _my_ facilities for _your_ business. I can do what I want.

“Besides,” he says. “I got more out of the kid in ten minutes than you did in _hours.”_

“That’s what concerns me,” Fury says, fumes basically coming out of his ears. “Why did he decide you were the person he was going to speak to?”

“Maybe because I showed him some damn _compassion?”_ Tony says. “God knows you haven’t been. I wouldn’t much like to talk to the one-eyed man screaming about sending me to jail.”

“There’s something wrong with that boy.”

Tony raises his eyebrows. “Finally something we can agree on. Except, we seem to have different opinions on how to help him.”

“You aren’t _getting it,_ Stark!” Fury exclaims. “That boy has made _attachments_ during his time with HYDRA. You said it yourself, he called you ‘Bubba’ during transport, he responded to your orders. If he’s made attachments, than he will always be linked to HYDRA. They will always have a way to control him.”

“Natasha’s out right now trying to track the guy down.”

“Yes,” Fury says. “And until she finds him, I don’t want you going anywhere near that cell.”

“Fine,” Tony says, wanting this conversation to be over.

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some actual _work_ to do that isn’t _babysitting.”_

“Safe travels,” Tony says, watching as the man leaves the penthouse where he had rudely barged in.

He thinks about what Fury had said to him. Why _had_ Peter been so responsive to Tony? There must be some kind of reason, and if it truly is only because Tony had treated him in a kind manner, than that’s just depressing as hell. Has the boy truly been raised the majority of his life surrounded by people who mistreated him? If so, what’s the deal with this ‘Bubba’ guy? What makes him so special?

Tony sighs, sinking down in the chair closest to him. There really is no way to know what the hell is going on under either Natasha finds their guy, or until the kid decides to give them some more information.

He isn’t sure which one is more unlikely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all liked it!!! 
> 
> i heard some feedback about how peter is reacting to this, but just know (without spoiling) that it'll all shape into place!!! 
> 
> also, the comments (while amazing and i read them all and cry) do have some spoilers to darkness will be rewritten, the prequel story to this, which is this scenario but peter was found at age 6, and the stories do tie in with each other slightly in ways of what happened to peter during his time with hydra, so if you haven't read darkness and you want to be surprised, stay away from the comment section!! 
> 
> that being said, ya'll are so smart and i love the way you make predictions and think about bubba in this scenario opposed to 6 year old peter. keep them coming. i love you all. 
> 
> make sure you keep social distance and stay safe and healthy!!


	3. drug store sleep aid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have absolutely no excuses other than covid-19 has changed every part about my schedule including now working from home and being assigned 5x more tasks in both work AND school. 
> 
> so sorry

Peter hasn’t slept in three days.

He sits in the same chair, in the same cell, day and night, staring apathetically at the same spot in front of him. Despite Tony’s suggestion, he does not give Fury much information, though it seems that his lack of responsiveness is more due to his lack of knowledge about HYRDA’s plans.

The kid doesn’t know anything about HYDRA’s plans, but that was to be expected. No, it seems to be much worse than that. He doesn’t know _anything._ General questions about his own training, the people he have killed, Peter claims to not know the answer to. He doesn’t know their names, he doesn’t know why they were killed, only that he was told to kill them, so he did.

The more Fury talks to the boy, the more the Director seems to think Peter is a psychopath, while Tony gets more concerned for Peter’s mental state. He doesn’t seem like a crazy killer to Tony. He seems like a child who doesn’t know anything other than the world he lives in.

How would Peter even know that it is wrong, killing people who are against you? Tony is positive that there are an abundance of issues the kid will have to deal with, to understand the world as it truly is, unlike what he was raised to believe.

That can be dealt with later, though. For now, Tony is focusing on the sleeping issue.

Three days, those brown eyes have remained open and staring at nothing. Fury has told him to sleep, reassured him that nobody would come in or bother him while he was sleeping, though Peter’s eyes remain open.

Tony has brought up the benzos, the large amount in the kid’s system when he was found. Suggested that maybe the kid has a dependency on them, needs them to sleep. There would usually be some kind of withdrawal symptoms along with that theory, though Bruce mentioned the possibility that Peter’s enhancement changes the way that a drug dependency could look.

“It could be completely mental,” Bruce had said. “Instead of mainly the body shutting down, Peter’s healing ability could erase any kind of physical withdrawal symptom, not to mention how quickly he is able to work through the drugs.

“Or,” he continued. “It’s possible that Peter has never had to sleep without them, so he doesn’t know _how_ to sleep without them.”

Fury shot down any suggestion to try giving the kid something to help him sleep, especially when there is no physical dependency that could harm him. Three days in, however, and Tony is wondering just how long it would take before Peter _does_ start to show physical symptoms of sleep deprivation.

“Just let me go in, I’ll talk to him,” Tony says, once again arguing with Fury.

“Nothing you can say will be any different than what I have already said,” Fury shoots back.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Clint says. “At this rate the kid’s going to die from exhaustion.”

Natasha and Clint had been hunting down potential HYDRA agents that may have information about where to track down this ‘Bubba’ guy. There have been quite a few leads, and they eventually narrowed down their search to a base in Eastern Europe. After discussions with the team, Steve had mentioned that he knew the area, took down a very similar base during the war. After it was determined that Steve would be a better partner for this mission, Clint had returned to the tower and was acting in Steve’s place as another bodyguard for the kid.

Tony is glad for the change. Clint, despite all his faults, seems to be very much on Tony’s side in all of this. He seems to be the only one who is willing to give the kid a chance, and Tony is grateful.

Especially now, because for the first time since their argument, Fury has given Tony the all clear to go in the cell. Begrudgingly, yes, but he still gives Tony a rough nod and allows the man to step into the cell, the doors sliding shut behind him.

“Hey, kiddo,” Tony says. Peter looks up at him, an immense look of relief flooding his face. “What’s going on? Aren’t you tired?”

Peter shakes his head.

“No?” Tony asks in disbelief. “Your eyes are telling me a different story, buddy. What’s going on? Can you not sleep sitting up like that?”

Peter squints his eyes slightly. “Don’t.”

Tony pauses. “You don’t? You don’t what?”

Peter frowns, looking at Tony in what can’t be anything but slight frustration. “Sleep.”

“Everyone sleeps, kid,” Tony replies. “You were sleeping when I met you.”

Peter’s frown only deepens, but he does not say anything in reply. Instead, he looks away from Tony and back to the wall.

Desperate to continue the conversation and not end what little progress he had made, Tony rushes to find something else to say.

“Do you only sleep when they drug you?”

Peter glances down at his arm, still pinned to the chair from the restraints that wrap around his wrist. The shirt they had placed on the boy upon arrival exposes his arms, and displays not only a sickeningly thin forearm, but also several pin pricks which indicate that yes, he only sleeps when they drug him.

Tony smiles slightly at the boy. There are so many things that is wrong with this kid, so many that Tony cannot even begin to fathom how far it truly goes. The Peter he is seeing in front of him has been so… _conditioned,_ that he doesn’t even understand why this is different. He doesn’t understand how it isn’t normal because he doesn’t know that there _is a normal._

“Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, hm?” Tony says, leaning in just a tad.

Peter’s eyes widen, but he does not flinch in fear nor back away at all. If anything, he has _leaned_ into it.

“Everyone needs to sleep.”

Peter’s eyes squint, his head tilting in a manner resembling a child hearing something they believe to be a lie.

“It’s true,” Tony says defensively. “A human should be getting eight hours of sleep every day, and if they don’t, within two to four days they can experience severe consequences.”

Peter shakes his head. “Spider.”

“Well, you make a good point,” Tony says. “Despite the fact that you are in fact, 98.5% human, the 1.5% that is indeed, spider, makes it so that you can go longer without sleep, it seems.

“However,” Tony continues. “Spiders do sleep.”

Peter’s eyes widen, his gaze going from distrust to childish wonder.

“Just like humans, they sleep every day to get the rest they need,” Tony says. He neglects to say that he only has learned these facts in the last day or so after Bruce began listing off potential theories of the mystery that is Peter Parker’s sleep schedule.

“They cannot close their eyes because they don’t have eyelids. They can’t blink, nothing,” he continues. “Can you close your eyes?”

Peter looks up at him for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut. After a few moments, he opens them and begins blinking furiously for a moment. When he is done this, he looks back up at Tony and nods.

“Exactly,” Tony says. “Point one of you clearly being human.”

“But…,” Peter speech stumbles slightly. “How… do them sleep?”

Tony pauses, making a note of the kid’s clear lack of grammatical knowledge. He isn’t sure yet if this is another sign of the clear stunted developmental progress Peter has, or because perhaps English is not the boy’s native language. Well, definitely not _native,_ Tony supposes, because Mary and Richard were English speakers. Though Peter was taken when he was two, and Tony isn’t sure when children fully learn and can remember their original language, if there is a cut off period or something, he’ll have to look into that-

 _Stop,_ Tony thinks to himself. _Focus on one thing at a time._

“They sleep the same way we do,” Tony answers. “We close our eyes when we sleep for reasons such as hydrating the eyes, keeping them closed to block light, things like that. Sleep is just the body reducing the amount of energy that it burns, so that it can fuel up.”

“Fuel… up?”

“Yeah, you know, like a machine?” Tony says. “We need sleep to get energy the same way a machine needs oil to run.”

Peter nods. “Fuel up.”

“You got it, kid, good job,” Tony says, giving the kid a thumbs up.

Suddenly, the kid breathes in a soft, so soft Tony can barely hear it, gasp. Peter gazes up at the man with a newfound look, tears filling his eyes slightly as his face morphs into something resembling… longing? desperation?

“G-good?” Peter whispers, the tears now threatening to spill out.

“Uh,” Tony says, very caught off guard. “Yes?”

Peter’s eyes lower, appearing to be scanning Tony’s entire body, from head to toe, hesitating at seemingly random spots, before ever so slowly meeting the man’s eyes.

Peter lets out a small whine, closing his eyes as one stream finally escapes from his eye. His fingers begin to tap out a swift and erratic beat, and from the recent patterns Tony has observed he assumes is Peter’s own heartbeat. His body begins to jerk, looking as if it were trying to rock back and forth, but the restraints were preventing much success there.

“W-What just happened here?” Tony says. “Peter?”

“Bubba,” Peter mumbles, eyes still closed.

“Peter, It’s Tony, remember?” He inches closer, slow enough as to not scare the kid, but trying to get close enough to get him out of the panic attack he is clearly rushing into. Peter must sense him getting closer, and his eyes open.

Peter lets out another gasp, this time much more panicked. Within two counts, Peter has stopped all movement and stood up much straighter than he had before. The tears leave his eyes so quickly it is like they were never even there, the only proof Tony has had they had even been there to begin with being the lines now stuck to Peter’s face.

“Sir,” Peter whispers, his voice cracking in a way that screams _puberty._ “I am sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Peter,” Tony said. “I’m not mad, I promise.”

Peter nods in submission, head lowering so that his gaze is as close to Tony’s feet as they can get whilst being frozen in a chair.

“You’re tired,” Tony says. “Close your eyes, yeah? Try and sleep. I’ll go and, uh, try and acquire some kind of sleeping aid.”

Peter nods, gaze not lifting from its place.

“Okay,” Tony nods back. “Nice progress.”

He backs away slightly, not turning his back on the kid, before opening the door behind him and stepping out.

Only after hearing the confirmative tune which indicated that the sound proof door had been locked, does Tony lay his eyes on the pair watching from the observation glass.

“What the _hell,_ man?” Clint says.

“What?” Tony says defensively. “I got exactly the information you’ve been trying to get out of him for days.”

“That kid is… is _messed up,_ ” Clint says.

“What the hell have you done, Stark,” Fury scorns.

“What was I supposed to do, yell at the kid?” Tony defends. “Yours clearly have not been doing much to help.”

“He’s _attached,”_ Fury says.

“He was shown some kindness for once in his life, he freaked out a bit,” Tony says. “Give him a break. More importantly, give _me_ a break.”

Fury shifts his body so he is standing fully in front of Tony, dramatically looking down at Tony. “You better hope this doesn’t end the way I think it’s going to end.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Tony says.

“Just make sure!” Fury orders, giving him one last stern glare before storming out of the room.

“That kid… is _messed up,”_ Clint repeats.

“Yeah,” Tony agrees.

There isn’t anything he can say here. By all defaults, Peter is truly and utterly _messed up._ Nothing about that conversation had been normal teenage behaviour. The kid is unaware of basic social norms, he has a vocabulary of a late elementary student at _most_ , and…

And he has some unknown connection to ‘Bubba.’

This is now twice that Peter has mistaken Tony for the man.

When Tony thinks back on it, Peter’s call hadn’t been of fright… well, slightly. Though the tone did seem mildly afraid, it had been… _desperate_ afraid, the way that a child calls out for their mother when they think they saw a monster under the bed.

There is simply no way that Peter was treated fairly, let alone well, at the HYDRA base. Tony sees it in the state of the boys nutrition, in his inability to sleep without narcotics, in the _way he acts like a conditioned child solider._

Yet, Peter doesn’t seem afraid. Not of Tony, and surely not of this… Bubba. It’s different around Fury, and Clint, and Rogers. Peter acts as if he is apathetic when they speak with him, and yet when Tony shifts the atmosphere of the conversation to a more… lighthearted one, Peter’s reaction completely changes.

Just who the hell is this Bubba guy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this may make no sense to you now but i promise it all ties up very well into a quite sad plotline. 
> 
> holla. stay safe, rest, stay CALM. 
> 
> my sister is getting tested tomorrow :( 
> 
> please leave any comment/suggestion down below as always. i love to read them. 
> 
> love you all


	4. dirt smells better than you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi! i am SO sorry it's taken 3 weeks for this. exams and getting tested for covid 19 get in the way of things. good news though, everyone in the house is negative. 
> 
> it's a long chapter, though? almost twice as long as normal. 
> 
> that being said. this is going to be really dark and will continue to be dark as hell for many chapters please, as always TREAD LIGHTLY TW for sexual and physical abuse i have a plan now but its darker than i thought it would be
> 
> TW: also please be cautious as this chapter involves self harm in the form of skin picking and pulling 
> 
> this isn't edited ill do that later im just excited for this chapter

“So you’re saying you haven’t made _any_ progress,” Fury accuses.

Tony is sitting in the briefing room with Fury, Clint, and Bruce, while both Steve and Natasha appear on the monitor in front of them, giving their daily report of their findings. So far, it seems, they don’t have much to work on, as Fury so kindly just reminded them.

“HYDRA was able to stay hidden for decades,” Natasha says. “They’re good at defence, good at staying under the radar.”

“We think they’re underground, somewhere,” Steve reports. “No radio surface above ground, anyway, not at least in Europe or North America.”

“That’s something,” Clint offers.

“It’s not enough,” Fury says. “We need answers on this kid, and we need them _now.”_

“How’s he doing?” Steve asks.

“Same as before,” Tony says.

“Untrue,” Clint says. “He’s imprinted on Stark like a baby duckling.”

Tony and Fury both shoot the man a glare while the two on the screen look confused. Well, Steve looks confused, and Natasha looks more… unsure.

“How do we know that? Has he said anything?” She asks.

“No,” Tony says. “-and he hasn’t…. _imprinted_ on me, Barton. He’s a human being, not an _animal.”_

“Dude,” Clint says. “He looks at you like you hold up the damn sun on your own, and I’m sure if you asked, he’d blow his own damn brains out.”

“Why Tony, though?” Steve asks. “What’s so special about him?”

“It could be that he was the one who found him, took him away,” Bruce chimes in. “Or that Tony is showing him compassion, being kind when everyone else is choosing… other methods.”

“I’m sorry I’m not Aunt Jemima,” Fury says. “He’s a _murderer,_ underage or not. We can’t just roll out the welcome wagon for every goddamn child in the business.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Tony says. “Do you seriously not see what is wrong with that whole sentence? There shouldn’t even _be_ any children ‘in the business’.”

“Stark, I live in the real world, not Candy Land,” Fury shouts. “People like HYDRA don’t care how old you are, they care about what you offer. The _justice system_ doesn’t care how old you are, it cares about stopping you.”

Tony shakes his head. “That kid hardly seems like the type who would hurt anybody away from HYDRA’s orders.”

“Would you like to test that, huh?” Fury demands. “Throw him into the world he doesn’t understand? Forget everything he’s done?”

“Of course not,” Tony says. “But treating him as if he has been acting on his free will this whole time isn’t right.”

Fury looks like he is about to begin cursing Tony out, but right before he can, his cellphone begins to ring and he looks down at it, cursing.

“Widow, Captain,” he says, looking towards the screen. “You better find something, _fast._ Report back tomorrow.”

They give their affirmatives, and without glancing at Tony, Fury has storming out of the room.

“He’s got a point,” Clint says, breaking the silence that had spread after the door slammed shut. “No kid in their right mind would look at _Stark_ the way that Peter does.”

“Is he unstable?” Steve asks.

“Who knows,” Clint says. “But you guys better hurry up and find this ‘Bubba’ guy before Peter replaces him for Tony.”

“You think he has a connection to this man?” Natasha asks.

“Nat, Stark gave him a minor praise, it was _sarcastic,_ and the kid was thrown into a damn near panic attack,” Clint responds. “Even called him ‘Bubba’ again.”

Natasha is silent for a moment. “That could indicate a lot of things.”

“Such as?” Tony asks.

“Well, for one,” Natasha begins. “His attachment to Stark could simply be due to the difference in treatment he is receiving. If our suspicions are correct and they _had_ been torturing him into what he is, then he should have gotten quite good at detecting the moods of his captors.”

“Like for instance,” Clint says. “One captor is kinder than the others.”

Natasha nods on the screen. “It would be easy to target that individual as the safest bet, especially if he needs something desperately and is too afraid to ask.”

“He hasn’t asked for _anything,”_ Tony says.

“Which is why it is most probable that his attachment to you is due to another factor,” she replies. “Bubba.

“If this man has been an authority figure in Peter’s life for a while,” she continues. “ _Especially_ if we are correct in assuming he is more lenient in his treatment than the others, then it is very possible that Peter is using Tony as a stand in.”

“I don’t want to be a part of any kind of weird projection the kid’s got going on,” Tony says.

“It’s much too late for that, Stark,” Natasha says. “Maybe next time try not disobeying orders. There is a reason they are in place, you know.”

Tony sighs. “Okay. Say the kid _does_ see me as this ‘Bubba’. What happens when we find the guy?”

“I can’t know until I know more about whatever relationship the two have, Tony,” Nat replies. “There are countless possibilities.”

“How many are positive?”

“Knowing HYDRA?” Natasha replies, pausing for a moment. “Anything is possible. Likely not as many as negative ones.”

“Great.”

“We’re getting close, Tony,” Steve says. “I expect within a week we’ll have something.”

“You better,” Clint answers for Tony. “I don’t know how much I handle the kid’s longing eyes whenever Tony walks in the damn room.”

The two on screen shake their heads and use that as their excuse to leave, the monitor going blank before JARVIS shuts it down.

“So, who’s on Peter watch tonight?” Clint says, shooting Bruce and Tony a wide grin.

Tony glares in his direction.

* * *

Tony, it seems, is on Peter watch tonight.

It’s not as interesting as it seems, especially when Tony isn’t supposed to go into the room. Clint is supposed to relieve him early the next morning, but until then Tony has nothing to do but stare into the room and watch as Peter _doesn’t_ sleep.

They gave him some sleep aids, after his stunt of not sleeping, and it seemed to have done to job of knocking the kid on his ass, thanks to Bruce’s work on Peter’s DNA. However, Fury had demanded that the kid not be given it every night in order to avoid any potential addiction that may occur, not when they are still pondering the idea that Peter may have already had one. The sleep aid is, for now, only being used once every few nights, when Peter is showing exhaustion and no sign of sleeping on his own.

He’s been falling in and out of quite a restless sleep, tonight. Tony watches as his eyes, absent and staring at the wall ahead of him, flutter closed, his head drooping to rest either on his shoulder or the back of the chair, only to shoot awake a few minutes later, eyes immediately going back to their original position.

Peter is currently in one of his short naps, right now, so Tony looks down at the Starkpad he had been working on. He knows he will only get a little bit complete until Peter captures his attention again by waking from whatever seems to be troubling him.

Long behold, not five minutes later, a small gasp is heard inside the room and Tony looks up to see Peter’s eyes open and his head up, looking in the same direction as always. However, this time something is very different.

Peter’s eyes are filled with panic, and he his entire body has tensed up so much that Tony can see the veins in his arms jutting out. He is frozen for a moment, small whimpers escaping his lips ever so often, before he shoots his head back as hard as he can, slamming it into the chair.

Tony jumps up from his chair, immediately rushing to the door to Peter’s cell. He can’t have the kid injuring himself, and Peter is continuing his constant abuse by throwing his head back again and again.

If Peter hears the door open, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He continues slamming his head into the chair rest behind him, and he is softly muttering something every time his head makes contact, a mantra Tony cannot hear until he gets close enough to recognize as ‘Hail HYDRA.’

Tony pauses a foot away from the chair. “Peter,” he calls out, once, twice, three times, and nothing is able to get the boy’s attention.

He sighs, knowing that he has to get the kid to stop, and knowing he can’t physically overpower the kid, even with the restraints, so he calls “Spider.”

It scares Tony, how fast Peter stops his movements. His entire posture goes stiff, his head shoots forward in the ever so familiar position, all evidence of his meltdown gone.

“Hail HYDRA,” Peter says once more, before his words cut off.

“Peter,” Tony says slowly. “Can you look at me?”

Peter hesitates, but slowly looks over in Tony’s direction, his eyes hovering right where Tony’s arc reactor lays beneath his shirt.

“Are you okay?”

Peter nods once. “No damage, Sir. Ready to comply.”

“Remember what I talked about?” Tony says gently. “How nobody here is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do?”

Peter hesitates, the confusion on his face very clear, before he takes a risk and looks up at Tony’s face. When he sees the man in question, his eyes light up in recognition.

“Sir Tony,” Peter mumbles.

“Just Tony,” Tony smiles. “No Sir.”

“No Sir,” Peter nods, his eyes widening. “M’sorry.”

“No need to apologize kiddo,” Tony says. “Can I look at your head? You may have hurt it.”

Peter shakes his head slightly. “No damage,” he says slowly, reminding Tony of what he had said before.

“Well, let a guy worry and check it anyway?” Tony asks.

Peter lets out a very quick gasp. “N-No _damage,_ ” he insists, his body beginning to shake.

“You don’t have to be scared,” Tony says, brows furrowing as he watches in confusion over Peter’s reaction. “I just want to make sure there isn’t injury, which I will help you fix if there is.”

Peter lets out a long, drawn whine. His eyes squint and his face bunches up, looking so betrayed and close to tears. His shudders begin growing so wide that it almost looks as if he is _convulsing_.

“Wow, please don’t cry,” Tony says. “I won’t look if you don’t want me to, okay?”

The sound that escapes Peter’s lips is akin to the one a dying man makes taking his final breath. It occurs to Tony that Peter had not been breathing in his fear.

Letting out quick, shaky breaths, Peter looked up at Tony. “Thank you. Thank you. Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

“Hey, hey,” Tony tries his best to soothe. “It’s okay, alright, no need for that, yeah?”

“Yes,” Peter said. “Yes, Sir, thank you. No damage.”

“No damage,” Tony says hesitantly. He just wanted Peter to calm down at this point.

“Thank you,” Peter said once more before deflating.

He goes to look back towards his wall, but Tony doesn’t want the conversation to end. He wants to know what the hell had just happened that caused that reaction. He wants to know what made Peter want to start slamming his head into the chair.

“You stink, kid,” is what he goes with.

“S-Sir?” Peter asks in a shaky, cracking voice.

“You’re fifteen,” Tony says. “Fifteen, and going through puberty, and you’ve been in this room for over a week now, and you haven’t bathed once.” As Tony speaks, Peter watches him in confusion, eyes wide and slightly alarmed.

“So you stink,” he clarifies.

“S-Stink?” Peter mumbles.

“Yeah,” Tony confirms. “You smell bad.”

“Oh,” the kid replies softly. His face turns into something of pure dejection, looking down at his body as if trying to determine where it was coming from. Tony is sure that the kid hadn’t even noticed, probably was used to the smell of his own sweat and grime.

He isn’t sure what the exact cause is that makes Tony make his next move. Maybe it was the kicked puppy look that the kid has painted on his face, or maybe it was simply the fact that the kid _really does stink._

“How about we get you a shower?”

Peter looks up at that, his face squinting in a look a displeasure, though he does not fight it anymore than that. He looks past Tony, looking around the room as if trying to figure out what in the bare room would be able to help bathe him.

“We would have to take you out of the chair, bring you up to my floor,” Tony continues, noticing Peter’s confusion.

“With…,” Peter whispers, looking unsure.

“With me, yeah,” Tony confirms. Tony had expected the reaction to that statement to be that of mild fear, if anything. He isn’t sure what is going through the kid’s mind, but being located to a completely different area of the building with only one man you barely know should be a tad frightening.

However, at Tony’s admittance, Peter’s face minimally lights up, the slight change in expression only visible if you were looking for something. Tony was. The boy seems delighted, whether getting out of the chair or getting to be with Tony, the man isn’t sure.

“Right, so…,” Tony trails off, gazing down at the cuffs that encase Peter’s arms and legs, strapping them to the chair. “We’ll have to remove the cuffs.”

He pauses, pondering if this is a stupid idea or not. He knows very well how strong Peter is, how he has been trained to kill since who knows when. The second the cuffs are off, Peter could kill Tony within seconds. The boy’s face shows no sign of any devious planning, though. Peter’s eyes have not moved from Tony’s face, watching as the man decides what to do.

“If I take these cuffs off of you, are you going to try something stupid?” Tony asks.

Peter blinks. “Sir?”

“Will you try to attack me? Or run away?”

Peter looks just as confused as he had been before. “Sir?” He repeats, his head tilting just slightly to the side.

“What don’t you understand?” Tony asks gently, trying not to scare the boy but knowing he at least needs verbal confirmation before he proceeds with what could be the most idiotic idea he had ever come up with.

“Not allowed,” Peter says, his head still tilted in confusion.

“You’re not allowed to say?” Tony guesses.

“No,” Peter says. “It… not allowed.”

“Attacking me or running away?” Peter simply nods along with Tony’s question, making the man assume it’s both.

“I’m not HYDRA, you know,” he says. “Any rules they have don’t apply here.

“However,” Tony continues quickly. “I would appreciate it if you decided not to attack me, or run away.”

Peter nods quickly, three sharp movements. “Yes, Sir. No attack. No run.”

Tony smiles down lightly at the kid, before reaching in his pocket to where his phone rests. He fiddles with it for a second, knowing that JARVIS is already implemented into the system and therefore it will only take one click to all the cuffs to fall aside.

“Alright, I’m going to release you,” Tony says, warning the kid before pressing the button.

The cuffs immediately unlatch from Peter’s skin, and Tony can see red lines where they had been pressing into Peter’s wrists. The boy doesn’t make any kind of movement to being released, however, simply sits there as if nothing had changed.

Seeing no reaction from Peter, Tony kneels down so that he is just below eye level with the boy, who has not yet left the chair and does not look like he plans to any time soon.

“You ready to shower, buddy?”

Peter tits his head again, his eyes growing wide. He gazes down at Tony, and out of the corner of his eye he sees Peter’s arm lift off of the chair. He waits as patient as he can, watching as Peter’s hand gets closer and closer to Tony, putting all of his faith into the kid’s promise to not attack him.

Finally, ever so slowly, Peter’s hand comes into Tony’s direct line of vision, and the boy hesitantly brushes away stray curl that had fallen onto Tony’s face. Ever so gently, he moves his hand to fix Tony’s hair, and after he does he keeps his hand resting on the side of Tony’s head, his fingers moving so slightly that Tony can barely feel it.

“You…,” Peter says, his hand still planted in Tony’s hair. “After?”

“After what?” Tony asks.

“Shower,” the kid responds, nodding his head slightly, eyes wide. “Stink.”

“After the shower,” Tony says slowly, trying to understand what Peter is trying to tell him. The boy nods again, seemingly happy that Tony is following along. “What am I doing after the shower?”

Peter pauses, pursing his lips slightly in a childlike pout. He looks lost and conflicted, as if he knows exactly what he means but is unable to find the words to communicate them to Tony. “You… after shower…-”

“After the shower I’m going to have to take you back here, buddy,” he says. “This is just to clean you off.”

“But you,” Peter stutters. His hand leaves Tony’s hair and travels to the back of his neck, where Tony knows a giant, ugly scar is residing, and he begins roughly scratching. “Shower for you.”

“Not for _me,_ ” he says. “For the sake of yourself, and everyone who has to come in this room.”

Peter, for the first time since Tony had calmed him down from his meltdown, looks Tony directly in the eye. “Wha…?” His eyes skate around, restlessly jumping around and searching for something Tony is unaware of.

“If you need something you need to tell me, Peter,” Tony says gently. “I can’t read your mind.”

“After shower,” Peter says for what feels like the hundredth time. “Bed.”

“You want to go to bed, after you shower,” Tony says.

“With Tony,” Peter says, nodding.

Tony freezes, every muscle in his body tensing up. “No.”

Peter must sense the change in Tony’s body language because he shifts back slightly, his hand continuing its scratching.

“I’m not going to hurt you, kid,” Tony says.

“It do not hurt,” Peter says in a reassuring voice.

“I’m not…,” Tony says, still not understanding what the hell the kid is on about. What doesn’t hurt? The scratching? Tony isn’t the one doing that to him. Should he be telling Peter to stop that? Based on the speed of the movement along with how much force it seems the boy is using, Tony predicts that the scar must be close to bleeding at this point.

“Look,” he says. “I’ll give you a room on my floor, just for tonight, that you can sleep in after your shower. Just to give this room enough time to air out, okay?”

Peter nods, though his eyes indicate he has no idea what Tony had just said to him.

“Okay, then,” he says, standing up from his position on the floor. “Let’s go, then.”

He motions Peter to stand, and the boy does, his face not indicating any pain from having his limbs stretched. Tony knows that they did let the kid up twice a day, both for the purpose of the kid being able to relieve himself. Each time, the boy has only a few minutes before he is put back in the chair.

It infuriates Tony. It’s clear to all of them by now, that Peter has little, if any, free will in this manner. The boy has been dehumanized, has had all of the things that tie him to a human being ripped away, his name, his identity, everything. All that he knows is The Spider, and he thinks that’s _okay._ That it is normal.

How are they supposed to convince him that they wish to help him when SHIELD is holding him in the same kinds of conditions that HYDRA had been?

He smiles gently at the kid, and takes a few steps towards the door, making sure to keep his eyes on Peter the whole time. The boy falls into step exactly three paces behind him, paying close attention to the speed and accuracy in which Tony walks. His eyes remain planted directly at the ground, right on the heels on Tony’s shoes.

It is so precise, so _perfect,_ that Tony knows this exact method of relocation has been engraved into Peter’s head. Three paces back, no more, no less, don’t ever allow them to catch you looking up. He wonders how long it took the kid to learn that.

The walk to his floor goes in silence, the kid not breaking the pace at all. When they step into the elevator, Peter hesitates before stepping on, watching where Tony decides to stand before moving as far away from him as possible in the small area.

By the time they reach the bedroom on Tony’s floor that he barely touches, he gently turns around, looking to where Peter has frozen exactly three paces behind him.

“Here we are,” Tony says. He points to the ensuite in the room. “Shower is in there, so go… do you. Get clean, you know?”

Peter looks quite taken aback, his eyes widening slightly in alarm. However, he does not argue but instead steps past Tony to enter the bathroom.

He doesn’t shut the door to the room, so Tony steps in the hall to give him more privacy. He waits one minute, then two, and then it is ten minutes and Tony does not hear the water running, so the man slowly approaches the bathroom before peeking his head in.

Peter is standing in the middle of the bathroom, looking up at the nozzle of the shower. Four of the fingers on the kid’s left hand are being gripped in his right hand, and he is biting down on the knuckle of his thumb. Quite, hard, by the looks of it.

“Pete?” The boy jumps slightly at the noise, and he looks back to Tony. He quickly takes his hand out of mouth and Tony sees that it isn’t _bleeding,_ but looks about ready to.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Spider does not…-“

“It’s okay,” Tony says gently. “It’s okay, don’t be sorry. What’s the problem? Do you not know how to turn it on?” Peter nods quickly, looking quite pleased that Tony understood this time.

“You just have to turn the nozzle, there,” Tony says, pointing to the device.

Peter looks in the direction before turning back to the older man. “Turn?”

“Yeah, like,” he tries to explain, his hands moving in a mock demonstration.

Peter looks down at his own hand and tries his own movement before moving towards the shower and repeating the movement over the nozzle. When water begins to shoot out of the top, the kid looks up but does not get startled.

The boy hasn’t stepped into the shower yet, though had leaned over to reach the nozzle and now the water is hitting his shoulder and the majority of his face. He doesn’t seem to mind the fact that the water is getting into his eyes as he looks up, and stands there gazing up as if he weren’t being hit by freezing water.

“Okay, so I’ll give you some privacy,” Tony says, stepping slowly out of the bathroom.

Peter’s head whips in Tony’s direction. “Sir?”

“You can shower,” Tony says, getting very worried as time goes by. Peter seemed to understand what a shower was, seemed to dislike the idea the way children fight baths, so Tony assumed he had at least been in one before. This, though, looks as if Peter had never stepped foot in a shower before.

“How do _you_ shower, Peter?” he asks, piecing together what small pieces he has of the puzzle.

“The hose, Sir,” Peter answers.

“The hose,” Tony repeats. “They sprayed you down with a hose?”

Peter nods. “White room.”

“In the white room.”

“Did they ever give you soap or anything?”

Peter tilts his head in confusion. “The hose cleans The Spider. No dirt.”

“They used a power hose?” Tony says in disbelief. If extreme amounts of dirt was able to come off the skin, a decently strong power hose would be required, and those can cause _serious_ damage to the human body.

Peter doesn’t seem to know the answer to his question, however, so instead he just looks down at Tony’s feet.

“Well, this is how we shower here, okay?” Tony explains. “I’ll show you how.”

He runs Peter through the soaps and shampoos and what they do, where to use it, etc. It feels mildly awkward, bending over a freezing stream of water with a confused child assassin beside him.

“There you go,” he says. “Knock yourself out. Might want to make the water a bit warmer, it’s freezing.” Despite his warning, he himself turns the nozzle to make a warm stream begin to flow through. Peter gasps, this time jumping at the temperature, confirming Tony’s silent theory that this ‘Hose’ most likely only shot freezing cold water at Peter.

Peter whines, staring at the nozzle with extreme intensity. It isn’t until Tony steps away from the shower that Peter shoots his hand out and turns the nozzle back, making the water resume its cold stream.

Tony purses his lips, though manages to hold his tongue. If he kid wants to bathe in ice water, Tony isn’t there to judge.

“Just take off your clothes, step into the shower, do what I said, and I’ll get you more clothes to change into, okay?” Peter immediately began taking his pants off, and Tony shot his hands out, startling the kid. “Wait until I leave, yeah? When you’re done just turn the water off and I’ll know and give you the clothes.”

He quickly turns and flees out the room, running to grab whatever sweatpants and shirt he can find that would fit onto Peter’s small body. By the time he gets back, the water is still running so he stands outside the door, out of sight so that Peter has some sort of privacy.

Soon enough, Tony hears the water shut and he coughs slightly. “Uh, dry off with the towel in there and then put these on.” He extends his hand so the clothes are in the doorway, and keeps it extended until they have been nudged out of his grip. He waits until he ceases to hear the slight ruffle of Peter putting the clothes on before he steps into the barrier.

Peter looks at him with wide eyes, once again biting at his hand whilst standing in an absolutely destroyed bathroom. He clearly did not shut the glass door while he showered, as the water is all over the floor.

The skin that is visible around the clothing indicates that Peter had scrubbed at his skin until it went raw. Even his face has red blotches on it.

Tony smiles awkwardly. “Well, you look… better.” _Not by much,_ he doesn’t say. He walks back into the room and indicates that Peter follow, and the boy does.

“Okay, so you can sleep here, okay?” he says. “I have to lock you in, though.” He has been pushing his luck with the shower, and he knows he cannot push it any further than to give the kid access to the whole floor.

Peter doesn’t seem to mind, nodding and looking around the room.

“Okay,” Tony nods back. “Goodnight, then.” He turns and goes to leave the room when he is stopped by a quiet whimper.

“You go?”

“Yeah, bud,” Tony says lightly. “I can’t stay in here with you.”

“Why?” Peter asks so softly, confused as if Tony had told a five year old they couldn’t have ice cream for dinner.

“Why do you want me to stay?” Tony asks. “Do you normally have someone there when you sleep?”

“I _don’t,”_ Peter says, reminding Tony of their conversation the other day.

“You didn’t sleep without the drugs, I know,” Tony says, feeling his patience running dry. He was never good at dealing with children, and Peter’s mental state is clearly much younger than his real age.

“You need to _tell me_ what you want,” he says after taking a deep breath. “Why do I have to stay with you?”

For the second time that day, Peter raised his eyes and looks Tony in the eyes. His eyes are filled to the brink with tears that are threatening to be released. Once again, he searches, looking for an answer Tony doesn’t know how to give him.

“Bubba,” Peter whispers, bottom lip trembling slightly. His face makes a large twitch, his hand shooting up to his mouth to bite down on.

“I’m not Bubba,” Tony says, and Peter’s eyes widen seemingly in the horror of having called Tony that. “I’m sorry, I’m not, so you have to communicate with me differently than you did him.”

It’s seems that this is the thing Peter was searching for, but it was the answer he didn’t want to find. His eyes immediately shoot down to the floor, his posture straightening. His hands get removed from his mouth and instead have moved behind his back, his fingers intertwining. He blinks a few times, and suddenly the tears have vanished from his face. 

“Yes, Sir,” Peter whispers. “Spider is _sorry,_ Sir.”

“Your name is _Peter,”_ Tony gently reminds before stepping towards the door. “I’m going to lock you in. If you need me for anything, just say my name okay?”

Peter nods from his position, frozen, and remains that way until Tony shuts the door and can no longer see him.

“J, notify me if he calls,” Tony says.

“Of course,” JARVIS says, and Tony silently thanks his AI for not addressing him as _Sir._

Peter doesn’t call him for the remainder of the night, and when Tony checks the security monitors three hours later, he hadn’t moved from where he was standing, but was now tearily looking at the door where Tony had left from, as if patiently waiting for him to come back.

His expression doesn’t change until Tony comes to retrieve him the next morning, and the look that replaces it is pure relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoped you all liked that! 
> 
> I noticed while planning that this fic is VERY similar to darkness in terms of plot, obviously. Though i feel like even the storyline is the same and i am not changing things enough to make it interesting, less boring and predictable for readers who have read darkness will be rewritten, so i added a different twist and different plot points and i HEAVILY changed the direction that i was going to take Peter in (in terms of how he will be different in coping as a teen vs a kid). its very dark but comes along with a lot of research about children of extreme abuse and the human mind and the extremes we take to be able to cope with trauma, etc. so i hope you will all be okay with that! I believe I could do the heavy subject justice and offer the proper help, etc. 
> 
> let me know what you think of my vague explanation. 
> 
> or, let me know if you'd like to see anything in particular in this fic! is there a way you think peter would react to certain things, what are your theories? let me know in the comments or hit me up on my tumblr @marveal 
> 
> https://marveal.tumblr.com


	5. the pictures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm baaaackkkk.
> 
> TW: implications towards physical/sexual abuse of a child  
> TW: self harm in the form of scratching and skin picking/pulling

Tony had not yet gone to sleep by the time Fury found out that Peter was missing. He knew that the man had discovered the lack of a body in the cell when Tony’s phone began lighting up every few seconds.

“How long until he gets here, J?” Tony asks.

“ETA is two minutes, three if I slow down the elevator,” JARVIS replies.

“Do that,” he responds, sitting up and grabbing his phone before answering the phone call from the man.

“What the _hell_ do you think you are doing, Stark?” Fury shouts the second Tony accepts the call.

“I’m sorry,” Tony replies in a nonchalant voice. “I was stuck in the room that smelt like a high school locker room, so I figured I’d let the kid shower.”

“You _figured,”_ Fury says.

“Then he requested to sleep in a bed, so I gave him one,” Tony says, neglecting to mention the part about Peter not sleeping in the bed at all, that he has been standing facing the door, waiting for something Tony isn’t sure of.

“He isn’t in the position to _make requests!”_ Fury shouts.

“That’s the exact attitude that made him ask me, and not you,” Tony snaps back.

“You get him back to that cell,” Fury warns. “ _Right now.”_

“Why?” Tony says. “You’re already on your way up here yourself.”

“ _Right now,_ Stark.”

“I think I’m going to keep him, actually,” Tony says. He isn’t sure what made him say that. Before now, he had no intentions of _not_ returning Peter to the cell, had told the boy that exact thing the night before.

As he stands here, listening to Fury scream at him, Tony realizes that he had never intended for the kid to go back into that cell. It was too… _awful,_ to keep a teenage kid with developmental issues chained down in a tiny room.

If they want to show Peter that they are better than HYDRA, why are they keeping him in similar conditions? Peter had been confused by the _shower,_ had furthermore been frightened when he learnt that it could be made _warm,_ enough so that he hadn’t been able to handle it, turning it cold once again.

Yet he never showed any confusion or complaint about the restraints, about the limitations to his bathroom usage, the interrogations. If the kid was going to get any better, to trust them enough to actually be willing to give what information he has on HYDRA, then he needs to be in an environment that is safe.

“You most certainly are _not_ going to keep him, Stark!” Fury roars into the phone. “We have to question him, he hasn’t given us _anything”-_

 _-“_ and he _won’t_ until he understands that he won’t get in trouble for telling us anything!” Tony yells back.

“He is an _experienced_ killer! We can’t just welcome him to a five star vacation!”

“We’re not going to,” Tony said. “Do the interrogation in the conference room. Sit him down. Give him some water or something, the way _normal_ interrogations should go.”

There is a pause over the phone while Fury ponders what Tony had just told him. “Put him back.”

“No,” Tony says. “And you can’t make it past JARVIS without my permission so I would suggest you do what I said.”

Tony can’t see the man, but he can picture so vividly the frustrated, seething look that has painted across Fury’s face. He knows Fury, has been dealing with him for years and always strives towards making the man’s job harder than it has to be.

This, however, is unlike anything Tony has ever done before. He has _never…_ challenged the man before. Usually, he disobeys orders, gives too much cheek, petty things like that. Demanding that Peter be kept in Tony’ custody, that the interrogations be placed in different conditions… that is not something Fury would ever forget, and by doing this Tony knows he will be placed much higher on Fury’s list of potential threats.

Good.

However, it seems Fury knows just as much as Tony does that Tony, in holding Peter in Stark Tower, is in charge here. The only person who can get past JARVIS is Tony, and he made it that way.

“Get him to the conference room in ten minutes,” Fury finally decides.

“You got it,” Tony agrees, hanging up the phone before Fury can say another word.

He figures that it would be best not to upset the man any more than Tony already had, so Tony makes his way over to the room where Peter is still standing.

When he hesitantly opens the door, Peter does not give any reaction other than dropping his gaze to the floor, as it was previously resting in the middle of the door, which Tony’s chest replaced once it was open.

“Good morning,” Tony says awkwardly.

“Sir,” Peter greets quietly, letting Tony know he is alert.

“We have a meeting, so… do you have to use the bathroom?” He asks, not knowing when the last time the kid was given a chance to relieve himself.

Peter blinks.

Tony sighs. This was a problem that Bruce had caught early on into Peter’s stay with the team. It seemed that his bathroom breaks were scheduled by HYDRA, in random and different amounts of time, and the boy seems to be very good at controlling it until he is near a toilet, or something similar.

This was very concerning for Bruce. He explained to Tony that if Peter has been regularly holding his urine in for long periods of times, which it seems he has been doing his entire life, it is very likely that the boy simply doesn’t understand when he needs to relieve himself. Whether he can detect the feeling of his full bladder or not, they are unsure, though when the bladder is being held in for such long periods of time, it can start to atrophy, which can mean a handful of problems.

Tony sighs. “Go… relieve yourself, in there,” he says, pointing towards the bathroom.

“Yes, Sir,” Peter says automatically and walks towards the bathroom, once again not closing the door, so Tony looks away as he hears some shuffling and then the sound of Peter’s bladder finally being emptied.

The toilet does not flush nor does the kid wash his hands, but Tony figures that proper bathroom etiquette class can be for another day. JARVIS can flush it automatically either way.

“All set?” Tony asks, waiting for the reply he knows is not going to come. When he hears none after a few seconds, he continues. “Come with me, please?” He phrases it into a question as if that made it more like the kid had any choice in the matter.

Peter doesn’t say a word but, just as he did the night before, lines up behind Tony and follows him out of the room. He looks awfully confused, though does not question anything until they are in the elevator.

Peter’s face is twisting slightly, and his hand twitches as if desperate to clench, or more likely to move up to his mouth so he can begin biting again.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks.

“I… I’m sorry, Sir,” Peter responds.

“Tony,” he corrects. “You can tell me. You won’t get in trouble.”

“Seven,” Peter mumbles.

“I’m sorry?”

“S-Seven,” Peter mumbles again, pointing at the buttons displayed on the wall across him. “Nine, three, seven, not thirteen.”

Thirteen is the number on the button that Tony had pressed and is currently lit up. Seven is where the cell is located. Peter must have noticed the previous night, when he was taken up. By nine and three, Peter must mean ninety-three, the floor where Tony’s penthouse is located.

“We aren’t going back to the cell, buddy,” Tony reassures. “Thirteen is a new room.”

Peter nods once, trying very hard to hide his fear. His eyes only manage to widen slightly before he is forcing them back into apathy. His hands can’t seem to be able to stop trembling, no matter how hard he tenses, so Peter places them behind his back where Tony can see them.

“It’s just for a few hours, maybe less,” Tony tries to reassure him. “Then we can go back up to my floor, like last night.”

“B-Back?” Peter mumbles quietly. His eyes are quickly darting left and right, as if wanting to look for proof in Tony’s face but being to fearful to.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “It’s in nobody’s best interest to keep you in the cell.”

“Relocate,” Peter mumbles.

“In a sense,” Tony confirms. “Just think of floor ninety-three as your new home.”

Peter’s eyes widen slightly, but he does not give any more indication towards a conversation, so Tony stays quiet for the rest of the journey to the conference room.

The kid is bleeding.

Tony hadn’t even noticed, in his hurry to get Peter to the interrogation room, but as Tony leads Peter into the room where Fury is already waiting at the head of the table, allowing him to take a seat a few chairs down from the man.

As he moves to sit beside the kid, however, he sees the trail of blood, some hours long dried and some recently new, at the back of Peter’s neck, covering the ugly burn scar. A quick glance at Peter’s hands shows several bite marks, most healed over by now, though indicating that Peter had been restlessly harming himself all night. Under the boy’s fingernails, which have obediently been placed in the cuffs sitting in front of him, is dried blood.

Tony makes a mental note to clean that up when they get back to the tower, maybe talk to someone about finding a better outlet for… whatever kind of emotion had struck Peter to do the amount of damage he had to his own skin.

“Mr. Parker,” Fury said the second the cuffs had been clipped to the desk.

Peter blinks while Tony makes an exasperated look. The kid can barely understand that his _real_ name is _Peter_ and respond to it in turn, let alone that there is another one.

“I want you to look at these pictures,” Fury says, reaching into a folder that had been placed in front of him. He lines them up in rows in front of the boy, and Tony counts thirty different papers, all showing brutally graphic photos of about ten different people, all deceased.

“Tell me, did you get to choose the way you murdered these people?” Fury asks. “Or do they tell you how to do it?”

Peter blinks once again and looks down at the papers, his expression not changing in the slightest. There is no terror, no disgust, nothing, as if Fury had rather placed a blank piece of paper down.

“Peter,” Tony says gently, sensing Fury’s frustration at Peter’s lack of compliance. He leans in slightly so his head is lower than Peter’s, gazing up into the boy’s eyes, which remain on the papers, flitting around them casually. “Do you… recognize any of these people?”

With Tony present for encouragement, Peter’s eyes eventually settle on one of the photos, and his hand hesitantly reaches out to point it out. Displayed in the photograph is Agnes Elmin, her neck snapped, body laying in the same position that Peter had left it in on the floor of her apartment.

“I knew they would send you,” Peter mumbles.

From the corner of his eye, Tony sees Fury straighten his posture slightly, leaning up in interest. Peter has never directly spoken to Fury, and he has _never_ spoken while the man was present in the room with him. _Tony_ hasn’t heard Peter speak a sentence as correct in grammar as the one he had just uttered, which peaks his interest as well.

“What’s that, Peter?”

“You don’t have to stay there I can get you out like I got out,” Peter blurts out very quickly in one solid breath, so quickly that Tony has to pause to take in everything that was said. When he does, however, he feels horrified.

“Did she… did she say that to you?” Tony asks in a voice as gentle as he can get it. “When you… went to her apartment?”

Peter nods. Before Tony can respond to that the boy’s hand moves again, towards another picture. Another woman, this one younger than Ms. Elmin, her face nearly unidentifiable due to the bullet hole that pierced her straight through the eye.

Peter’s face twitches slightly, seemingly bothered by the image of the woman. “Wet.”

Fury narrows his eyes at the boy sitting in front of him. “Wet?” Peter eyes do not leave the table, but they do flick hesitantly over in the direction where the older man is sitting.

“W-Wet,” he repeats. He brings at hand up to his face, pointing at his eye.

“She was crying?” Tony guesses.

Peter nods swiftly. “Crying.”

“What about this man?” Fury interrupts. He points to the paper closest to Peter, one the boy hadn’t looked at, or had tried to avoid looking at, though after given an indirect order, he finally lowers his head to get a better look at the photo sitting in front of him. His face doesn’t show any indication he recognizes the photo.

Looking himself, Tony isn’t sure there is anything _human_ about the photos. It could just easily been a photo of a deer that had been run over by a truck, maybe two. There was nothing _left_ of the man by the time he had been found, Tony heard.

James Pillbruck, a very popular politician in his district, who had been very vocal against his competitor, Edward Loft, about six years ago. Loft had been quite conservative, with very set in stone opinions, many of which were quite… _concerning._ Many people had agreed with him and his questionable views, however, and those who did not agree did not put up much of a fight to get him out of office, most likely due to his wealth. Loft was also a notable philanthropist, had been one of the only people funding parts of the city that nobody would. With his funding, Loft had single-handedly built hundreds of communities from the ground up. What once was a slum, was now an up and coming neighbourhood. Most people had taken his charity with open arms, willing to ignore his beliefs if he would continue putting money where it needed to be.

Pillbruck, in his quest to win over the citizens of New York, had taken a stand against Loft. He had recognized the hidden messages in Loft’s money, in his speeches. The man was corrupt, was using his funding to hide behind what he truly wanted to make the city of New York. What he wanted to do to America.

One night, James had gone out to take his dog on a short walk, and was found less than an hour later, not even a block away from his house, mutilated. There was not an inch of him left, he had been murdered _brutally,_ the work of an inexperienced, deranged, and messy killer.

His dog had still been by his side, when his body was found. Witness reports stated that a makeshift water bowl had been placed off to the side, where the dog lapped happily at. Tony wonders if Peter had put it there.

He would have been nine years old.

“Well?” Fury’s angry voice snaps Tony out of his thoughts.

Peter’s mouth opens as if to say something, but nothing manages to come out. He closes it and reopens several times, but nonetheless, he seems to be unable to make a sound. His body begins to shake slightly, from what Tony assumes is fear. Fear of not knowing the correct answer or fear of the photograph, the man isn’t sure.

“There isn’t a right or wrong answer here, Pete,” Tony tries to reassure the kid. “Yes or no. Do you remember this man?” Peter looks up at Tony for the first time since sitting down. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t make eye contact, his eyes resting on the faint glow of the reactor, a spot he seems to prefer.

“Doggy?” It comes out as a small whisper, so soft that Tony is pretty sure Fury had not even heard.

“He had a dog,” Tony nods. Peter gives one curt nod in reply and looks back at the photograph.

“Can you remember what they told you about this man?” Fury asks. “What were his credentials, why was he such a big target? Why were you ordered to mutilate him like that?”

Peter lets out a drawn whine. It’s quiet, deep in the back of his throat, and it begs for help. He’s confused. He doesn’t know any of the answers to the questions Fury is asking him. He’s thinking about something, something he doesn’t want to remember.

“Peter?” Tony asks hesitantly.

Peter’s shoulder begins to roll, as his he was violently trying to shake something off. _Someone,_ more like. It’s getting to the point of danger, and Peter seems to be seconds from completely dislocating his shoulder from its socket.

“Peter, _Peter,_ stop,” Tony says, placing his hand gently on Peter’s other arm, the one he was sitting closer to that was _not_ twitching uncontrollably. Usually when Tony touches Peter the boy goes extremely, eerily still, and he tries to avoid that often. This, however, is a situation in which Peter being still is a better option than Peter harming himself, as he is about to do if he does not stop trying to break free from a touch that was not there.

That did not seem to be the right move, though, because the second Peter detected a _real_ touch on him, his struggling became monumentally worse. He released another desperate whine, jerking away from the touch as much as the cuffs around his wrists would allow.

Quickly, Tony tears his hand away as if it had been burned. Peter’s struggling had gotten worse, more violent than Tony has ever seen him. He begins tugging on the cuffs, and it doesn’t take more than five seconds for the boy to have broken the chain. Five more, and he had rotated and tensed his hands so hard that Peter had snapped the entire cuff off, and his hands were free.

Tony didn’t have chance to observe if Peter would have chosen fight or flight, because the second the boy’s hands were free, Clint flies into the room and sticks a very large needle into the side of Peter’s neck.

The boy lets out one last jerk in surprise of the needle, but that is the last movement his body allows before he is collapsing onto the table.

“That was a _rush_ ,” Clint jokes. “Do you think he would have tried to kill you? I doubt it, personally, considering he is in love with you”-

“He is not _in love with me!”_ Tony screams, loud enough that the unconscious Peter twitches slightly. He was quite sick of Barton joking about it, especially considering Peter's... _unusual_ actions and behaviour around Tony. 

“Dude, _relax,”_ Clint said, raising his arms in surrender. “I was only joking.”

“A messed up joke, really,” Tony says, lowering his voice.

“You’re right,” Clint says sincerely. “It was tasteless. I’m on your side here, man, he’s just a kid. I’m sorry.”

“He doesn’t even know what love is,” Tony says.

Fury scoffs.

“I’m sorry, do you _think_ he’s had a selection of loving figures in his life?” Tony snaps, jerking his head in the man’s direction.

“What I _think,_ Stark,” Fury begins. “Is that we don’t know _anything_ about what happened to that boy and until we do, we can’t make any assumptions.”

“They would hose him down with a damn _power hose!”_ Tony exclaims.

“I’m sorry, _what?”_ Clint demands.

“We can’t make any assumptions,” Fury repeats, ignoring Clint. “Until we have information from a _reputable source.”_

 _“_ We might not have to wait that long,” Clint says. Tony and Fury both whip their heads to look over to him.

“Continue,” Fury says in an impatient voice.

“They found the guy,” Clint says. “Bubba.”

“They found him,” Tony repeats.

“Just now,” Clint explains. “He wants to make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Fury says, his tone indicating that there isn’t much they _wouldn’t_ do for him in exchange for information.

“He doesn’t want to go to jail, man. His freedom for his knowledge. He says he’s got years of information, important stuff,” Clint says. “We can confirm from Peter that it’s true, he does have the experience. He’s got to know _something.”_

Fury narrows his eyes. “Bring him in.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked that chapter! sorry the chapters are coming in so slow, the days seem like they are going by in 5 hours these days. it feels like i just posted the last chapter last week. 
> 
> but now it gets good. 
> 
> he is here 
> 
> please leave a comment if you wanna met me know what you think !!! and as always, bubba is a character who is recurring from part 1, darkness will be rewritten, so if you don't wanna know who he is yet (if ya aint already guessed) there are spoilers the comment section!!!!


	6. interrogation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said on tumblr this would be released "by the end of the week" and then i started writing the rest 10 minutes later so here u go anon who asked on tumblr!

“We’re not seriously considering letting this guy walk free,” Tony says, staring through the one way glass where Bubba resides.

It’s a small room, different than the conference room they had put Peter in, as well as the cell the boy was in before that. This room is just about the size of a public bathroom with two stalls, the only furniture in the room being a table with three chairs, two on one side, one on the other, where Bubba is sitting.

They haven’t cuffed him in any way, Tony notices. He is simply sitting there, hands folded together and resting atop the table, waiting for someone to enter and begin questioning him.

“We haven’t linked this man to any HYDRA related crime,” Fury said. “Protocol ensures that HYDRA agents will be protected under the condition that they are compliant, provide SHIELD with as much information as they know, and have not committed any war crimes during their time in the organization. So far, he fits that profile.”

“Right… and if he doesn’t give you any information?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if it comes our way,” Fury says. “Romanoff is going in now.”

Just as he says that, Tony notices the door of the room opening, and watches as the red haired woman casually walks in and takes a seat in one of the chairs across from Bubba, placing a few folders in between them on the table.

“Before we commence the questioning,” Natasha starts. “You must be aware that the conditions of our deal are very strict, and if you do not obey every one as we proceed, the deal is off.”

“Got it,” Bubba says. He looks uneasy, his intertwined hands so tense that his knuckles have turned white.

“Nervous?” Natasha says, picking it up at the same time Tony had.

“I’m being questioned by a woman who is notorious in her methods of… extracting information,” Bubba says.

“If you comply there won’t be any need for that,” Natasha says in a reassuring voice, despite her face which warns him that those methods aren’t off the table, if he does not.

“So, let’s start with an easy question. It’s presumable to say that ‘Bubba’ is not your real name.”

Bubba snorts. “No. It’s Micheal Spencer.”

Tony lifts his tablet, where JARVIS has already begun shifting through databases in order to determine if this was true.

“Why ‘Bubba’?” Nat asks.

“It’s a stupid name my brother gave me, when we were kids,” Bubba explains. “He tried to say brother, it didn’t work, I became ‘Bubba’. It stuck.”

Natasha hums. “And how did you find yourself working for HYDRA?”

“Look, I didn’t _want to.”_ Bubba says. “They came to _me,_ recruited me, and they gave me the impression that if I had said no, I wouldn’t be alive come tomorrow.”

“What makes you so special?”

“I… I worked at this… this research university, in Canada,” the man explains. “Dr. Banner could explain to you just how desperate some scientists can be to replicate the serum that created Captain America.”

Natasha does not take the bait. “You tried to replicate the serum.”

“No, Jesus, no,” Bubba says. “I’m not a chemist, I can’t even make a baking soda volcano.

“I practiced behavioural psychology, why humans do what they do, and I was curious about… how extreme behavioural therapy could go, what would happen if you took a kid and raised them to _think_ they were special, to _think_ they were as strong as Captain America. It’s fascinating how the mind works, really, mothers lifting cars off babies, things like that. The mind can convince the body that it can, so it does.”

“You experimented behavioural conversion onto children?” Natasha asks.

“ _No,_ I told you,” Bubba says. “I didn’t do a thing. I worked at a damn _university,_ for God’s sake. You think that would have passed an ethics board?

“I wrote a paper,” he explains. “Just a paper, a theoretical, on how the mind is truly what makes a super solider. How it could be possible to, with a rigorous training protocol, to create super soldiers without any sort of injection or chemical.”

“HYDRA sought you out because of your paper,” Natasha finishes.

“Yeah,” Bubba confirms. “But you have to understand, it was _never_ meant to be literal. It was fake, it was to see what could happen, a significant amount of behavioural psychology is determined from the theoretical, the what if, I just _wrote a paper.”_

“A paper that got into the hands of a terrorist organization,” Natasha says. “What did they offer you? A chance to fulfill what your paper spoke of?”

“Well, kind of, they said they had some kid, an enhanced, who they were planning to turn into their super solider, and with his abilities and behavioural therapy, he could be, I don’t know, unstoppable.”

“The Spider,” Natasha says.

Bubba hesitates. “Yeah.”

“You paused for a moment,” Natasha observes. “Why?”

“I didn’t know you knew about him,” Bubba says.

“He came with us after our infiltration of your base,” Natasha explains.

The man’s face lights up slightly. “He’s here?”

“Does that excite you?”

“I thought he was _dead,”_ Bubba explains. “He has a protocol, for breaches like that. He knows he can never be taken alive.”

“He was asleep,” Natasha says. “Drugged, it looks like. He didn’t know what was happening. Why did it bother you to think he was dead?”

“Look, Ms… Black Widow,” Bubba says. “I told you already, I didn’t want to join HYDRA. They threatened me, my _family._ I did what I had to do.”

“Yet you agreed to perform the mental torture of a child.”

“I- I never hurt him!” Bubba exclaims. “They had no idea what half of the shit in my paper even was, I just… I spent time with him.”

“You spent time with him,” Natasha repeats.

“Well, yeah. They would send him to this room, where I would go and supposedly ‘train him’,” Bubba explains. “He had physical trainers, and they would beat him senseless, so when it came to behavioural training, I just used a simple reward system.”

“Explain.”

“He would act out,” Bubba says. “In different ways than a normal kid, sure, but there would be periods where he would break down and hit people, would cry uncontrollably, or would come back from his assignments having completely messed it up, either by killing the wrong person or by killing them in the wrong way, things like that.

“Not to mention,” Bubba continues. “That from my understanding his father was some kind of genius. Knowledge like that is dangerous, especially from someone they were trying to control like 'The Spider’.”

“Peter.”

“I’m sorry?”

“His name is Peter, Peter Parker,” Natasha says. “I’m sure you knew that.”

“I… I knew his name was Parker, but I never… _Peter,”_ the man replies in awe. “Better name than ‘The Spider’, I’ll give you that.”

“You complied in using behavioural conversion on him,” Natasha says. “When did it start?”

“I met him when he was four,” Bubba says. “I didn’t really start working with him until a year or two after, but I did speak with him a few times, just to understand what the… starting point was, I guess.

“I didn’t hurt him, though, I _promise,”_ Bubba says. “I rewarded him when a mission went well, usually just through praise, sometimes I would sneak him a juice box or a piece of chocolate, things like that.”

Natasha hums but does not give the man a response. Instead, she stares at him, using the scary one that she gives Tony whenever he is about to use the last slice of bread. She is sizing him up, waiting to see if he will give her any clues towards his intent.

He doesn’t. Bubba allows her to look at him, not flinching or breaking eye contact with the woman. He seems genuine. There was no malice intent in his statement, nor was there anything to indicate he had been lying.

Tony looks down at his tablet once again, where JARVIS has now highlighted a number of links. After clicking on them, Tony sees any paper trail that Micheal Spencer has ever left, including three drivers licence photo’s, dating back from the time the guy was sixteen years old. Not a fake identity, then. The next link provides him with the very same article entitled _Super Soldiers; A Result of Chemistry, or the Mind?_

The paper trail ends just a few months after HYDRA had recruited the man, and it seems he had fallen off the radar once he joined, unsurprisingly. HYDRA was never very keen on sharing people they thought were important.

“Well, Mr Spencer,” Natasha says. “So far you haven’t given us much information, not enough for our deal to remain intact.”

“What?” Bubba asks in slight panic. “What do you want to know? They didn’t give me access to anything, just the Spi…just Peter.”

“Can you give me any names?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bubba replies. “Yeah, I can give you the names of anyone I saw.”

“I suppose you weren’t Peter’s handler, then?” Natasha asks. “If you were not present nor informed of any of his progress in fields unrelated to psychology.”

“No, no I wasn’t,” Bubba says. “That was Loft.”

“Loft?” Natasha questions. “Edward Loft?”

“The very same,” Bubba confirms. “It was quite a shock for me, as well, considering”-

“Edward Loft’s main competitor in the congress election was murdered months before the election,” Natasha informs. “Loft has been on our watch list for over a decade.”

“But you didn’t have any ties to him, right? I gave you the name.”

“Other than being the Handler of ‘The Spider’, how significant is Loft’s position in HYDRA?”

“Big,” Bubba says. ”That stunt you pulled a few years ago, it did major damage to HYDRA, and with Alexander Pierce gone they were scrambling for a new leader, you understand.”

“Loft is the director of HYDRA?”

“Yeah,” Bubba nods. “For the past few years.”

“Was Alexander Pierce the handler for ‘The Spider?’”

“No. It’s switched between about four people, since I started,” Bubba informs her. “They can’t seem to figure out exactly what it is, what they want from the kid. It switches when a new end goal comes into play.”

“How did that affect your work?” Natasha says, once again using an interrogation tactic that only she can master.

Micheal Spencer does not take the bait. “My _work_ was forced, and it didn’t affect it that much. I didn’t tell them the methods I used, they didn’t tell me the methods they used. It wasn’t this big collaborative project.”

“So you have worked with Peter continuously since he was four years old.”

“I’ve known him the longest out of all of them, yeah,” he says. “He trusts me.”

“Why does he trust you?” Natasha says. “He shouldn’t trust anyone, that’s a lesson he would have learned from the beginning. Only… obedience. Wasn’t that your job to teach?”

“He trusts me because I am _kind to him,”_ Bubba says.

“You’ve never hit him? Yelled at him?”

“Well, sure, I’ve… knocked him around a few times, but only when other people were around. I had to keep… images, you know. Or else they would have interfered with my time with him.”

“Why was it so important that you had alone time with him?”

There it is. A slight, almost unnoticeable shift in his face, something that tells Tony that this man is not telling the truth, at least not fully. There is something he is trying to hide from them. Something happened between him and Peter, something he doesn’t want them to know.

As soon as the hesitation begins, however, it is soon gone. “I wanted to protect him, as much as I could. He is a cute kid, but I have a family. Unfortunately, my life comes before some strange kid I met in a HYDRA bunker.

“I tried to help him as much as I could,” Bubba says. “He’s here, isn’t he? Ask him. Or better yet, let me see him”-

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Be there with us, I don’t care, I can show you that he isn’t _afraid_ of me, he _loves me!”_

“Do you love him?” Natasha asks.

Bubba sighs. “He’s a sweet kid. I only tried to help him. When they brought him to me, I tried to… lighten his spirits, as much as I could. You have to understand that if I hadn’t been there, they would have killed me. I did what I could.”

“We will see about that,” Natasha says. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Spencer.”

“What?” Bubba asks. “That’s it?”

“If we find your information to be truthful, and we _will_ find out if you have been lying, we will further look into any kind of protection you may need.”

Bubba’s eyebrows furrow slightly, as if he wants to argue, but he keeps his mouth shut and gives the woman a curt nod as she leaves the room.

* * *

“We are _not_ letting him see Peter!”

“Tony, it would be the best way to see if what he had said was true,” Natasha says. “Based off of Peter’s admiration for the man even when he thought _you_ were him, I can positively say that Peter won’t be harmed from one interaction with the man.”

“I was _just_ getting him to understand that I’m not him!” Tony yells. “Now we are just going to let the man walk back into his life?”

Clint snorts. “You jealous, Stark?”

Tony sends a glare in the other man’s direction but does not reply. Instead, he begins to pace in the conference room.

“If Peter _was_ the only main interaction he had in his time with HYDRA,” Natasha says, trying to make Tony understand their point of view. “Then bringing him back into the environment he felt safest with the kid would help us to understand his true intentions. It’s much easier to lie when your work is right in front of you.”

“You can’t,” Tony says, clenching his hands into fists. “You can’t interrogate the man with Peter present. You just can’t.”

“We won’t,” Natasha says. “We’ll bring him into a room, different than yours, different than the cell, maybe a spare bedroom, a place he can feel calmer. Then you will bring Peter in.”

Tony sighs. Realistically, he knows that there is not much to be worried about. Peter has only been afraid of Tony in the times he understood that Tony was _not_ Bubba. When he was comparing Tony to the other man, he was… affectionate. He expected to be treated kindly, and when he was turned down he began to act hostile, even afraid.

Maybe… maybe if they do this, if they allow Peter to meet with the man, they will be able to see just what it is that Peter wants. Tony has spent countless nights thinking about just what it is that Peter expects from him. Why had he wanted Tony to sleep in the same room with him? Why did he allow Tony to touch him, even touch the man back, without being frightened, or aggressive? What is so special about Tony?

What is so special about Bubba?

The man’s story _does_ connect well to Peter’s behaviour. The boy had never shown that he was afraid of Bubba, seemed to _long_ for the man. Maybe he was telling the truth, and he simply is all that Peter has ever known of a kind touch, a kind voice.

 _Praise,_ he had said. Tony thinks back to that night in Peter’s cell, when the boy had finally begun to understand that he needed sleep. Tony had told the kid he had done a good job, had given him a thumbs up, said _good job._ The boy had worked himself into a panic over those two words, had immediately started linking Tony’s name to Bubba’s.

It connects. If Bubba had been the only person to bother to praise the kid, of course Peter was going to get attached to him. Tony knows enough of psychology to understand that positive reinforcement is a heavy determiner in personality, in trust. In Peter’s eyes, Bubba is most likely the embodiment of a person he loves, if only because he did not have a single amount of positive reinforcement that did not come directly from the man himself.

It all comes down to, in the end, just how messed up Peter’s mind truly is. This is because if Peter had been _that_ desperate for affection, for attention directed at him in a light, happy manner, than it is very likely that the boy is willing to simply… overlook anytime or anything that Bubba has ever done to him.

Maybe the man _had_ used Peter as a punching bag, threw him around to release some steam. Perhaps he even apologized, after, told the boy what a good boy he had been for taking it so well. It’s a common tactic used by abusers, and if Bubba truly _had_ been forced to work for HYDRA, there should have been enough pent up anger from that. With the easiest target being Peter himself, Tony wouldn’t be surprised if Bubba had knocked the kid around.

That’s speculation. There is no way to know what Bubba had truly done to the kid unless himself or Peter tells them. With the man’s story remaining solid, and Peter being no help at all at the moment, the best chance they have to understanding is to watch the two together.

It couldn’t hurt, right? Tony will be there, Natasha will be there, right outside the door, watching from the observation room. Nothing could happen to Peter, not in the time it would take Natasha to intervene.

It could help Peter, in the long run. If they could break down the conditioning, it could help towards giving the kid a better life, one where he understands that he is not simply a puppet for HYDRA to control. With his knowledge of the base, his experience working with Peter, Peter’s trust of him, as well as his education in psychology, Bubba could, if proven not guilty, be a great help in reversing some of the trauma that they have inflicted upon the boy.

Tony doesn’t understand why it bothers him so much. Any other person, Tony would be encouraging this interaction, be eager to observe the behaviour of both parties as they reconnected for the first time since the infiltration.

“Fine,” he says. “Let’s do it.”

They come up with a plan, the best method they can have the two interact in the safest way possible. It takes some time, but eventually they have an entire blueprint made up, where everyone will be observing, with Clint in the vents waiting with a tranquilizer dart, just in case.

It isn’t until Tony makes his way up to his floor that night and sees Peter’s wide brown eyes light up in greeting does he understand where his hesitation comes from.

Maybe he is a little jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... yeah. this is not going the same way darkness did. you'll see. :D 
> 
> also unlike in darkness, i actually gave bubba a damn name!!! which may clue you in that he will be a much bigger role in this one than he did in darkness :D 
> 
> leave a comment if you wanna guess where this is going! or if you wanna express any feelings you have !! or hit me up on tumblr @marveal and tell me what you think! to whoever is currently doing that, i enjoy reading your anon questions and prompts so please continue!!! 
> 
> (as always plz notice that there may be spoilers in the comments from readers who have read darkness will be rewritten)


	7. old smoothies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! 
> 
> yes i changed my url to marveal so it will match my tumblr!! 
> 
> sorry it has been so long. literally a month. but i am here. slow and steady will eventually get you across the finish line. 
> 
> it has come to my attention that I did not properly warn about some triggers in the last chapter, and for that I am very sorry. I will make sure to do better in the future. Please let me know if anything is not warned correctly.
> 
> TW for this chapter: mentions of past abuse, sexual, physical, and emotional. Vomit mention (if you want to avoid, stop reading at “provide a light drink,” and continue at “That was two days ago”

They wait until the very last second to tell Peter their plans. In fact, they don’t even tell the kid _at all._

Natasha had informed Tony that this would be the best way to observe Peter’s true behaviour, if he was being caught off guard in seeing Bubba for the first time. Tony had argued that doing this turns Peter into nothing but a lab monkey, though he was quickly cut off.

They _do_ need to determine what this man’s game plan is, whether he can be trusted or not. Peter isn’t the most reliable source, either, but the one thing they do know by now is that Peter has had absolutely no say in what has happened to him.

Even Fury has backed up in the recent days. The past few days since their last meeting with the kid seems to have shown the man two simple things. One, that Peter remembers all of his victims and his encounters with them enough that he can recite the exact words they had said to him, and two, that he is infatuated with Tony.

An infatuation, it seems, which continues to grow despite Peter’s meltdown the other day. By the time the kid had woken up in his room where they had dropped him, it seems Peter had forgotten all about his panic attack.

Tony hadn’t wanted to risk another one, so he hadn’t mentioned the interrogation, and neither has the kid.

The problem now, however, is that Tony doesn’t know what to _do_ with the kid. Peter stares blankly when presented with choices, waiting instead for Tony to tell him what he should do.

Once, the man had tried to wait patiently until Peter _had_ made a choice between what he wanted to eat for breakfast, but when an hour passed and still the kid was no closer to deciding, Tony had sighed and left to make Peter something.

There is also the ever present struggle of what he is even _doing._ Peter has not left his bedroom unless directly told to, despite Tony telling him that he can roam the floor. JARVIS has strict instructions to not allow Peter to leave the floor, and the door to the balcony remains locked in case he tries to jump and escape. That doesn’t seem to be a problem, though, due to the fact that Peter seems quite content in his room.

Tony had been worried, at first, that Peter would be afraid of him, after he had reacted so badly to being touched by him the other day. It seems that he had no reason to worry, and Peter most likely did not even know it was Tony himself that had been touching him, for the boy still remains… besotted, to him.

He isn’t sleeping, either, despite their conversation about how Peter needs it just like everybody else does. Whenever Tony checks the cameras at night, Peter is either staring at the door where Tony had left from, or towards the bed as if confused about its presence.

The TV is another thing Peter is not too fond of. Tony had put on a simple children’s show, one he thought was mature enough for teenagers to enjoy, but also simple enough that Peter’s stunted development could understand.

It wasn’t the show that was the problem. It was the quick moving objects, as well as the loud noises that is coming from it. They frightened Peter.

He tried not to show it, to sit as still as possible on the edge of the couch where Tony had placed him. His eyes never left the screen, though his eyes twitched every now and then, as if he were holding himself back from flinching. He had stopped the movements within five minutes, and Tony had made the mistake of thinking that the boy was accustomed to it.

It wasn’t until he looked at Peter and notices the kid, while still looking at the TV, was somewhere far away. It was the same way that he had stared at the one way glass when he was in the cell, the same way he stared at the door when Tony left him for the night.

Tony wonders where his mind goes.

Nonetheless, the second Tony had noticed the dissociation, he had turned the television off and had maneuvered Peter into solving a puzzle that he had sitting around from the last game night the team had hosted. It took some time, but as Peter’s mind started focusing on the puzzle, Tony had started to see life re-enter the kid’s eyes as he left whatever world he has made for himself inside of his head.

The biggest problem right now, though, is the food issues. Peter had been so skinny when he arrived, and he is showing no signs of gaining any weight back. He doesn’t seem to be able to handle most solid foods, and Bubba had informed them that Peter’s diet had mainly consisted on tubes giving him all the nutrients he needed. The boy’s stomach, after a scan completed by JARVIS, was much smaller than it should have been.

He hadn’t shown any problem eating the broth, the other week, and every time Tony hands the kid a snack, whether it be a granola bar or an apple, the boy accepts the item but never eats it.

Tony is sure that eventually he will find the food hidden around the penthouse. Who knows how desperate for food Peter has been, in the past. He wouldn’t put it past the kid to hide rations around in case he were starving.

For now, they stick with broth and smoothies. The thicker the smoothie, the less likely Peter will be to eat it, so Tony has begun experimenting on which foods have the largest amount of calories that still provide a light drink.

Peter does not seem to have a preference for tastes and flavours, however. He drinks anything that is handed to him, and Tony has only noticed that there was an issue with the heavier drinks when the kid physically removed it an hour later.

That had been fun.

Peter had been still and silent, in the hour after he had drank the smoothie, thick with protein powder that Tony had hoped would bulk him up. That was not unusual, though, as Peter never talks unless spoken to, so Tony had assumed nothing was wrong.

Due to his inability to express his needs or feelings, however, Tony had not been aware of the fact that Peter was going to be sick until he had heard a small noise and looked over to see the kid sitting on the floor where he had been silently watching Tony, the smoothie reappearing all over his lap.

Peter had looked at him, not in fright, per se. It was as if he knew the exact punishment that comes with vomiting all over yourself. This has definitely not been the first time. He did not make a move, silently sitting there in his own sick, waiting for Tony to make a move first.

When he thinks back on it, Tony thinks that is what is the most concerning. That Peter has been so… dependant, on his captors, for almost all of his life, that he does not even know what to do if he gets sick. He just waited.

He waited for Tony to respond. He knew exactly what HYDRA had done in this situation, and he was waiting for Tony to react in the same way, whatever the hell that was.

Tony had taken a deep breath, trying to think of the right thing to say in this situation.

“Guess that smoothie didn’t agree with you, huh kid?” Peter had blinked at the tone of his voice, but he had not said anything.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Tony had said, just as gentle. He moved towards Peter, but the boy did not get up from where he was sitting. “What are you thinking, Pete?”

“Floor,” Peter had mumbled.

“Can you explain more, so I can understand what you mean?”

Peter pursed his lips, still covered in his vomit which trailed down his chin. He hadn’t even wiped it away. “Get up, it… go on floor.”

“That’s okay,” Tony had said.

“No,” Peter had mumbled slightly. “No, no, no, no, please, Sir, no.” The desperation in his voice really threw Tony off guard, especially for how calm the boy had been before.

Clearly the punishment for vomiting on himself was different than the punishment for vomiting on the _floor._ Whatever the latter be, it clearly scared Peter more than the former.

“Hey, hey,” Tony had said gently, walking slowly over to the boy with his arms raised in surrender. “I would never be upset at you for throwing up on the floor, okay?”

Tears had gathered in Peter’s eyes, and he let out a small sniffle. “ _Please.”_

The sight of Peter sitting cross legged on the floor, crying while vomit was pooled in his lap, covering his shirt and face was just devastating. Tony doesn’t even want to know what they had done to the kid for him to be that afraid of what might happen.

“Okay,” Tony had whispered. “That’s fine, I can clean you up here the best I can, so that nothing gets on the floor. Then you can go shower, I’m sure you aren’t feeling that great right now.”

Peter had blinked several times, clearing his eyes from any tears that lingered, though a single one did manage to escape, trailing down the boy’s cheek and disappearing into the sick.

“ _Thank you,”_ Peter whispered, his hands clenching in his lap as he made sure nothing escaped his lap. “Thank you, Sir.”

“My name is Tony, remember?”

“Tony,” Peter repeated back.

Tony had quickly retrieved gloves, a few towels and a bucket that he could maneuver everything into. He had returned and quickly got to work, trying desperately not to gag as he scooped as much as he could into the bucket before he began using the towels to absorb the rest from Peter’s clothing. It took some time, but he managed to avoid getting any on the floor, thank god. The kid never flinched away from his touch, nor indicated at all that he was uncomfortable. He simply looked on, letting Tony clean him up.

When he got too close to the kid’s upper thigh, however, he paused and looked up to Peter. The boy had still not reacted, though it was much too close to being out of Tony’s comfort zone, especially with all the jokes that Clint had been making.

“Think you can hold this here, clean the rest up?” Tony said, motioning to the new towel he had placed on the kid’s leg. Peter did not respond, but grabbed the towel and began wiping at his thigh the same way he had seen Tony do it.

When everything was clean enough that nothing would fall when Peter stood up, Tony discarded his gloves into the bucket along with the towel, and grabbed a smaller facecloth that he had wet. He smiled gently at the kid and slowly moved the towel to the kid’s face.

“One more thing, bud,” he whispered. He gently wiped the residue off of Peter’s chin and mouth, so gentle that it took a few wipes for it all to come off. Peter had watched him with wide eyes the whole time, pure admiration in his eyes.

That was two days ago.

Today, Tony is leading Peter into a guest bedroom on a completely empty floor, where Peter will never have to return to if this meeting goes bad. A new environment, where he will not have any biased reaction to meeting Bubba again.

Peter looks around for only a few seconds before his eyes return to Tony’s shoes, showing that, as Tony has come to learn, he is alert and listening.

“Okay, Peter,” Tony said. “You with me?”

“Yes, Sir,” Peter says, just like the perfect little soldier.

“Who?”

Peter pauses, his eyebrows pinching together slightly. “Tony.”

Tony smiles. “That’s it, buddy. Now, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.”

Peter nods. “Ready to comply.”

“This isn’t a mission,” Tony says. “There is no failing or succeeding, okay?”

Peter is silent, waiting whatever orders he thinks Tony may give. His eyes do not leave their spot on Tony’s shoes.

“You’re going to stay in here for a little while. Not long,” he adds, seeing slight panic fill the boy’s eyes. “Someone is going to come in and talk to you, but I will be watching the whole time, so nothing will happen to you.”

He can see the gears turning in Peter’s head as he tries to figure out what Tony had just told him.

“Hey,” Tony says, reaching out to rest his hand on Peter’s head gently. “If you don’t feel comfortable, or you want to leave the room, just… I don’t know, look at the camera up there are blink three times.”

Peter’s eyes follow the finger that Tony is pointing with in the direction of a slightly hidden camera. He blinks three times.

“Perfect, just like that,” Tony says. “Just look into the camera and blink three times if you want me to come get you.”

“Get me?” Peter asks.

“I’ll bring you back to my floor, I promise,” Tony says.

Peter seems hesitant, but he does not say anything else, his eyes going back to their resting position at Tony’s shoes.

“Is that okay with you?”

Peter blinks. His eyes lift to meet Tony’s for a small moment, as if trying to see if the man were joking, before falling back into position. “Yes, Tony.”

Tony smiles gently at the kid, even know Peter is no longer watching him. He begins tapping his feet in a steady rhythm, so that Peter can see it.

“Alright, Peter,” Tony says. “I’m going to go now. Do you remember what to do if you want to leave?”

“Blink one, two, three,” Peter says, blinking heavily along with the numbers he is saying. “Camera.”

“Good,” Tony smiles, and he watches as Peter’s body slightly shudders at the praise. “Well, see you soon.”

He walks out of the door and is met a few doors down by Natasha, Fury, and Bubba. They are watching the screen where the live feed from the bedroom is playing. Peter, not surprisingly, is standing in the bedroom in the same spot he was before, staring at the door which Tony had left.

“Alright, you ready?” Natasha asks Bubba.

“Yeah,” the man says. “You sure you don’t want me to ask anything specific?”

“We know what to look for, Mr. Spencer,” she responds. “You wanted to see him, now is your chance.”

“Right,” Bubba says.

They discuss things for a minute or two, such as where they would like Bubba to stand, but soon the man has left the room and is approaching Peter.

He knocks outside the door, a melody that Peter seems to recognize, because second the kid hears it he stands even straighter and his eyes widen, lifting up. His body is almost _trembling,_ and Tony is about to end it right there, but Natasha lays a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

The door to the room opens slowly, and Tony watches as Bubba’s face finally comes onto the screen, where both them and Peter can see him.

Peter is bouncing now, as if the floor is burning his feet if he stands still for too long.

“Hey, you,” Bubba says, smiling at the boy. “You going to give me a hug?”

That’s not protocol. They specifically told him not to touch Peter.

Peter doesn’t seem to have a problem with it, though. In fact, he seems… _overjoyed._

He lets out a squeal that Tony has never heard from come from him, and he races over to the man and wraps his skinny arms around the man.

Bubba hugs Peter back, closing his eyes and burying his face into the boy’s curls. He seems to be whispering things into the kid’s ear, quiet enough that the microphone cannot pick up.

“We’re just going to allow this?” Tony yells.

Natasha shakes her head slightly, but nonetheless allows the hug to continue as she watches the screen.

After what seems like an eternity, Bubba takes his head out of Peter’s hair and smiles down at him. “You smell good.”

“Good?” Peter whispers, still bouncing slightly now that Bubba has released him.

“Good,” the man repeats, bringing a hand to stroke the kid’s cheek slightly. “I missed you.”

Peter nods eagerly, tilting his head into the man’s touch.

“I heard you have a new name, my little spider,” Bubba says.

“Codename: Peter,” he replies, sounding out the syllables as carefully as he had the night he first heard his name.

“I like it,” he says. “It suits you.”

Peter’s eyes widen in pure admiration, and Tony sees what it is like to watch as Peter’s attention is focused on somebody that is not him.

“Back?”

“No,” Bubba answers. “I don’t think we’re going back any time soon.” Tony finally understands, then, why Peter seems to be frustrated whenever Tony can not understand what his one word sentences mean. Why should be elaborate, when Bubba is able to understand exactly what he means?

Peter blinks up at the man, and it does not slip Tony’s attention that Peter has been maintaining eye contact with the man without struggle.

“I don’t know what they want with you, my spider,” Bubba says, answering Peter’s silent question. “But the Avengers want you here, so you’re going to stay here.”

“You?”

“I don’t know what they’ll do to me.”

“Stay.”

“That isn’t up to me,” Bubba snaps, making Peter’s face clench up in a small flinch. “Hey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t get mad at me.”

“Not.”

“Are,” Bubba smiles, stroking Peter’s face again. “That’s okay. You can be mad at me.”

“ _Not,”_ Peter insists.

“There are different rules here,” Bubba says, making Peter nod. “Do you know what they are?”

Peter purses his lips, similar to the way he did during the smoothie incident. “Hard.”

Bubba hums in understanding. “Are you being good?”

Peter nods again. “Mr. Tony do not say Spider’s purpose. Does not want Spider to”-

“You can’t do that here,” Bubba cuts him off. Peter’s eyebrows furrow in a silent question. Bubba, of course, knows what he wants.

“Everything we did there, you can’t do here,” Bubba says. He lets out a large sigh. “HYDRA was wrong.”

“Hail HYDRA,” Peter whispers, almost like it was forcibly activated from the sentence.

“No,” Bubba says. “You belong to the Avengers now. Everything they want from you, you do, okay?”

Peter breathing has picked up, and he battles it by holding it in, eyes flitting around Bubba’s face as he stops himself from breathing.

“Calm down,” Bubba says, stroking his hand up and down Peter’s back. “It’s hard to hear, I know.”

They are quiet for a few minutes while Peter regains his ability to breathe at a steady pace. The man is shushing him the way one would shush a baby, and it seems to be working. Only when Peter has completely calmed down does Bubba begin talking again.

“How long have I taken care of you?”

Peter blinks. “Ever and ever.”

“Forever,” Bubba nods. “You need to take care of me now, okay?”

“I do.”

“No,” Bubba shaking his head. “This time I need you to be good for the Avengers, okay? Do what they say.”

“You go?”

“I don’t know yet,” Bubba replies. “The Avengers determine what happens to me.”

Understanding fills Peter’s face, and the boy nods. “Good boy.”

“You are,” Bubba says, placing both of his hands on Peter’s cheeks. “Such a good boy. I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

Peter whines, longing and desperate. Bubba gives him one last, long hug before telling Peter he has to leave now.

Peter hugs him one last time, his body shaking.

Soon enough, Bubba has left the door and was ushered into an interrogation room where Natasha will use everything she has just witnessed to try and get information out of the man.

Tony goes back to the room to collect Peter, and this time, the boy’s eyes don’t light up when he sees who it is at the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything will make sense in the end, my loves! xx 
> 
> i cannot apologize more for my lack of updates, life sucks right now and i am poor and trying to make money to pay for my bills. not a valid excuse, especially when i promised that i would update, but i hope you can understand, and that you are taking care of yourself in these awful times!! 
> 
> that being said, please leave a comment or hit me up on tumblr @marveal to discuss theories!!! I love reading/responding to your prompts, suggestions, and theories to where this is going!!


	8. robots, explosives, and dogs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters, two days. 
> 
> tw for this chapter: past physical/emotional abuse, slight dissociation

Natasha, Tony was informed, thinks Bubba is hiding something. What that is, she is still unsure of, but the woman has decided that the only option they have at the moment that ensures that they will _eventually_ get the answers they need is to keep the man at the tower indefinitely.

“Not _indefinitely,_ Stark,” Natasha had rolled her eyes. “Until I get what I need.”

“Which, because we don’t know when that is, is indefinitely,” Tony rebutted. “I don’t like him being in my Tower.”

“The longer we allow him to be here, the more comfortable he gets around us.”

“Comfortable enough to spill to the Avengers that he really _was_ working with HYDRA on his own free will?” Tony snorted. “Doubtful.”

“It’s the only shot we have,” Natasha said. “Unless you want to waste weeks tracking him down when we _do_ find something on him.”

“Fine,” Tony snapped. “I don’t want him talking to, not even _looking_ at Peter.”

“I can’t promise that,” Natasha said. “His behaviour towards Peter wasn’t in any means harmful.”

“But is that because he truly cares about Peter?” Tony asks. “Or is it that he’s groomed Peter to be HYDRA’s little pet? The best trained dogs share strong connections with their trainer.”

“I’m not ruling anything out yet,” she responded. “I need more time with him.”

It’s been a week since Peter and Bubba’s reunion. As of yet, they have not seen each other since, though that is mainly because Natasha spends every waking minute with the man, doing whichever interrogation tactic she thinks will work best on him. Tony has only seen _her_ a handful of times.

Their infiltration of Peter’s base had led to several different leads, so the rest of the team has been coming and going like clockwork, leaving Tony to stay at the Tower and look after Peter.

Which would be fine, if the boy had not developed a newfound distaste for the man.

It is as if Bubba being back had made Peter completely forget about any affection he had towards Tony. While it was relieving to no longer have Peter’s loving gaze directed towards him, he now looks towards Tony as if he were just another… handler?

Peter still reacts to things the same way he did before, is still following indirect orders such as drinking the smoothie he is presented, taking a shower when led there, etc. However, he does so now without even looking at Tony, nor does not say anything to the man. Whatever Peter’s mind has decided Bubba being back means, it has also decided that Tony is no longer worth his attention.

Which, of course, just proves their theory that Peter had been subconsciously using Tony as a replacement for Bubba himself. The boy had never gone more than a day or two without seeing the man who seems to be his entire world. Being away for that kind of outlet for that long, it’s no surprise that Peter had latched onto the first person to remind him of Bubba, which just happened to be Tony himself.

So, for now, Peter is content to just stand or sit wherever Tony leaves him, awaiting whatever orders he thinks are going to come.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony knows that he should be afraid of Peter. This child has been trained to kill since he was a baby. He knows how to do it precise and perfect. Tony wouldn’t even know he was being killed by the time Peter had killed him, if the boy wished.

Thankfully, Bubba’s warning to Peter has only made the boy cease any affection he had been showing towards Tony, and the boy does not seem to be very upset over the fact that he is away from HYDRA, just Bubba himself. In fact, from the observations Tony has made over the past few weeks, it seems Peter is at least _aware_ that he has not received a punishment since arriving.

There is a clear problem that Tony has _no idea_ what to do with the kid. Peter has made it clear that the television is not his friend. When he presented Peter with a simple children’s book he had found, the boy had mainly examined the pictures, his eyes glossy as they looked over the words.

He can’t read.

Well, it seems he can read _some_ things. Words that he may have been exposed to on charts, files left open, things like that. Words such as ‘Spider’, and ‘Asset’. It seems, most likely due to mission purposes, he also can read the days of the week, as well as months, and he is able to tell the time on both digital and analog clocks.

He also very much enjoys solving puzzles, completing so many within a day that Tony had to order dozens more just to keep the kid occupied. He has been thinking about designing Peter a tablet with puzzles built in, to keep the boy’s mind occupied and engaged. He isn’t sure how the kid would react to the tablet, however, especially with his bad reactions to the TV.

Peter had become extremely frustrated with one puzzle, containing horizontal lines of red and blue. The boy seemed to be unable to differentiate the colours of the pieces, and Tony had seen him trying to connect a blue piece to a red one due to their similar edges.

Was Peter colourblind?

He hasn’t been able to test that theory yet. For now, Tony sticks with puzzles that are more tactile rather than visual, for the kid’s benefit.

Today, however, Pepper had called to demand that Tony finish his model for the release of the new StarkTech that he had promised would be done by… two weeks ago? He can’t delay it any longer, Avengers business be damned.

He had called Clint, the only person available who was currently at the tower, but he had sighed over the phone when Tony asked him to watch Peter.

“You know I would, man,” Clint said over the phone. “I’m at the dog park with Lucky, poor thing hasn’t had an opportunity to have some fun for awhile. I’ll be back in a few hours, we’re getting pizza for dinner.”

“You’re going to kill that thing with all the pizza,” Tony scoffed.

“He _likes_ pizza!” Clint exclaimed. “What, you think it’s okay to eat pizza in front of him and deny him any? He has feelings, too!”

“Right, right,” Tony said. “Just come as soon as you can.”

“Will do,” Clint said. “I’ll see if they have anything non fat, non grease, and non sugar for our little starving assassin.”

Tony hung up the phone, realizing that unless he wanted to have Peter stay on the floor alone, he would have to take the kid to the lab. He looked over to where the boy was currently sitting at the kitchen island, a maze toy in front of him that is designed for elementary school children. Peter seems to be enjoying solving the maze over and over, especially after Tony had presented him with one he had tampered with to change the maze after every success.

“Hey, kid,” Tony said, causing Peter’s head to immediately pop up and look over to the man. “I have to go work, would you like to come with me?”

Peter didn’t respond, but he did pick the puzzle up and place it in the bin where Tony had retrieved it before standing alert.

“Alright,” Tony sighed.

He led the two of them to the elevator, which Peter has now gotten mostly used to, and has not gotten frightened over the difference in floor numbers since the first day.

When they arrived at the lab, Peter’s eyes had widened when he had examined all the tech scattered all over the place. Tony was just beginning to wonder whether he should have warned the kid about what he has in the lab, especially considering Peter had been _raised_ in a damn lab, when a large crash in the corner interrupted his train of thought.

The noise had also made Peter startle quite heavily, though the boy quickly regained control and settled his face into the one that means he is going to pretend he had not done anything, one that Tony has learned to just accept. It’s better than a meltdown of apologies.

Dum-E had seen them arrive, and seems to be overjoyed at the sight of a new, fresh face that he can make friends with. He twirls in his spot a few times before zooming over to the two of them. Peter, unable to hide the fear in his eyes, does not move from his spot as Dum-E races over.

“Hey,” Tony says in warning. “Peter, this is Dum-E. Don’t let him give you anything to drink. He isn’t too smart.”

Peter blinks at the robot, but does not make to touch the thing. The fear in his eyes has resided significantly now that he knows the bot does not pose any threat to him, and now he is looking at Dum-E with curiosity.

“I have to work over there,” Tony gestures towards his work bench. “Why don’t you play fetch with him, Pete? He’s just like a dog.”

“Doggy?” Peter whispers, tilting his head as he examines Dum-E up and down.

“Sure,” Tony said. “I built him myself. He loves fetch.”

“Fetch?” Peter repeats.

“You know,” Tony says, waving his hands around. “You throw something, he collects it, brings it back, you throw it again. You ever play fetch?”

Peter nods. “Fetch: Heat training.”

“What do you mean?” Tony asks.

Peter makes the face again, his frustrated face that tells Tony he should have been able to understand. “Handler Morgan. Throw, Spider fetch.”

 _Peter was the dog,_ Tony thinks to himself, trying to think of the best thing to say here.

“Heat training?”

Peter sighs quietly, and Tony can tell that, akin to a toddler who is close to nap time, that Peter is on his way to another meltdown if Tony asks anymore questions. He seems to have blocked out most of the traumatic events that happened at HYDRA, and whenever Tony asks him about them he gets on edge and quickly deteriorates.

Perhaps this is because to HYDRA, the only thing that Peter had to remember was the _lesson._ It doesn’t matter what they did to him to get him to learn it, it is the fact that he learnt it at all that matters. So, Peter pretends that many of the things he had done or been subjected to never happened, and his mind simply consist of the list of rules that will avoid punishment. He knows exactly what punishment is given for every breach of the rules.

“Rocks.”

Tony pauses. “He thew rocks?”

When Peter nods, Tony takes a second to think about the information he has gathered, knowing another question may send Peter off the deep end. After a few moments, it clicks.

Tony sighs. “They threw _hot coals_ , and you picked them up and delivered them back to them. What, to see how resistant you were to fire, or to see how fast you healed from being burnt?”

Peter just nods, his eyes slowly fading away as he physically pulls himself away from the conversation.

“Right,” Tony nods with him. “Well, how about you just throw this ball for him.” He moves to where he keeps a small beach ball for Dum-E to practice his motor skills with. He hands it to the boy, and when he wraps his hand around it, Tony moves over to the lab bench.

He can see Peter out of the corner of his eye, and he sees the boy glance over him every few seconds, standing in the corner where he had been left. Eventually, however, Peter very slowly moves to the corner of the room, across from where Dum-E’s charging station is, and he tosses the ball a few feet away.

Whirring happily, Dun-E races to the ball and picks it up with his claw, before racing over to Peter and presenting the ball. This process happens about ten times in the span of half an hour, Peter giving the bot long breaks in between throwing the ball.

When he notices that it’s been at least fifteen minutes since Peter’s last throw, Tony glances over and sees that Peter is now sitting cross-legged on the floor, Dum-E curled up beside him while Peter strokes his claw gently, as if petting a dog. Tony averts his gaze quickly, not wanting Peter to notice and stop in fear of punishment.

Instead, he resumes his work and decides to leave Peter to his own devices, especially considering his wiring does not seem to be as straightforward as he had planned. He opens the plate covering the wires, and begins tearing apart what he had originally had to restart.

He spends an hour on the wiring before deciding that he has figured it out, making a note to send Bruce the schematics to get a second opinion. Before he can put the plate back over the wiring, however, a small noise directly above him is heard.

“Sir.”

“Fuck,” Tony jumps, placing a hand over his heart. He looks up and sees Peter directly on the the ceiling, hanging from his feet as he observes Tony’s work. Peter jumps slightly, too, hearing Tony’s distress, but he does not fall off the ceiling and remains in place.

“I didn’t even hear you move, kid,” Tony says, breathing heavily. They had read in Peter’s file that he was able to stick to walls, though Tony had never seen it in person, and it is oddly terrifying. Peter had been crouching above him before, but now that Tony sees him, Peter straightens out and his face is almost just at eye level with Tony’s, despite being upside down.

“Boom,” Peter whispers, his eyes planted on Tony’s work.

“Boom? It’s not a bomb, Peter.”

Peter shakes his head and points toward the device, and Tony furrows his eyebrows as he looks from Peter to his creation.

“The wiring won’t explode, buddy, don’t worry.”

“No,” Peter says determinedly. His finger make a circular motion as he traces the perimeter of the object.

Tony looks closer, not seeing a single problem with the internal structure of the device, but he goes along with Peter’s warning and places his magnifying glasses on his head, looking around the edges of the device.

There it is. On the right side of the device, a microscopic crack is only _just_ visible in the casing. Despite its size, with the amount of electrical current that he wants to run through the tech, _any_ flaw in the casing will cause an electric arch, which will eventually overheat the device and, well… explode.

“Shit,” Tony mutters. He places the plate back over the wiring. He will have to build a new base entirely to avoid that mistake.

“Shit,” Peter says back.

Tony smirks up at the boy. “You’re right, kid. This will indeed, go boom.”

Peter nods.

How did Peter even _know_ that? The kid can’t _read,_ how the hell was he able to detect the smallest scratch, and immediately understand that it would lead to a probable explosion? Had he worked with explosives before?

He wants to ask the kid, but he figures one unpleasant memory is enough for one day, so instead he backs away from his desk to allow Peter to come down.

“Well, there is nothing else I can for this, today,” he says, knowing that he is likely to come down the second he puts the kid to bed later. “How about we go back up? I’m sure Clint is back by now.”

Peter jumps down from his spot on the ceiling, landing just beside Tony, allowing the man to lead him back to the elevator to Tony’s floor.

Clint, it seems, has beaten them there, and is sitting on the floor beside Lucky and a mostly empty pizza box, sharing a piece of crust with the animal in question.

“Hey guys!” He says, waving the crust in the air. Lucky wags his tail in greeting, though stays by his owners side. “I brought home pizza! Well, I got Peter this rice soup that Bruce said would be okay, I asked the owners specifically to make it without the stuff Peter can’t handle, so really it’s just broth with a bit of rice, but it’s the best I could do.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” Tony says. “What do you say, Peter?”

Peter, however, has no eyes for Tony nor Clint. His attention is completely enraptured by the one-eyed dog, eyes wide as he stares at the creature happily devouring the last of the pizza crust.

“Hey Peter,” Clint says. “This is Lucky, my dog.”

“Doggy,” Peter whispers.

“Do you want to say hi?” Clint asks.

Peter glances towards Tony, and the man smiles gently down at him. Peter nods.

“Lucky, go say hi,” Clint says, and the dog immediately gets up and scampers over to where Peter is standing, wagging his tail. When he arrives, Tony pets his head gently before moving away from the two to give them some space.

Peter looks down at the dog, standing at his feet and wagging his tail, waiting for the boy to pet him. Hesitantly, the boy pets the dog the same way he had been stroking Dum-E, and Lucky’s tail wagging gets heavier, and he begins circling Peter in excitement.

Peter keeps petting the dog, spinning around a few times himself to keep his eyes on Lucky, and as Tony steals a piece of pizza from Clint’s box, he notices a small smile planted on the kid’s face.

Peter eats all of his soup that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don’t understand engineering so pretend everything i said about wires was correct :) i literally googled “what causes tv’s to explode” and went from there
> 
> drop a comment if u feel like it :) i’m always wanting to hear your thoughts!


	9. this is where shit gets real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! I know it has been awhile but summer school kicked my ass, but I passed with good grades and I am back and kicking!! 
> 
> TW for this chapter: sexual assault, child sexual assault (heavy) and violence, dehumanization and dissociation.

They can’t find anything on Bubba that counters his statement about his involvement with HYDRA; most agents Natasha has found have either not known who the man was, or had seen him around but didn’t know what his role was.

They’re giving up. There is not much else they can do, with the way that Peter has been unwilling to give them anything on the man other than displaying how much he seems to love the guy.

Bubba has, to give credit where it is due, been very cooperative throughout their investigation. He has not complained once about being locked in his room, never said no to an interrogation and has, as much as Tony is aware, giving them everything they need to know that he can.

So why then, does Tony feel a deep pit in his stomach whenever he sees the man?

Peter, as he slowly warms back up to Tony, occasionally asks about the man, during the times he believes it to be safe to ask, such as when he is playing with Dum-E. He has grown quite fond of the bot, and in return Dum-E seems to have taken it upon himself to guard Peter from any threat the boy seems to perceive in the room. Due to his unintelligent programming, Dum-E himself can’t seem to understand the nature of what is safe and what is not, so he has taken it upon himself to stand near Peter whenever he senses the boy’s unease.

Clint brings Lucky over, as well, as much as he can, and Peter has taken extremely well to the dog, visibly brightening whenever his eyes catch him. He enjoys playing with the dog, and to Tony’s dismay the boy seems to enjoy the dog toys just as much as Lucky does, hugging them and petting their matted fur whenever he holds them.

Tony has thought about getting Peter a toy for himself, perhaps a stuffed animal to cuddle with that is not covered in dog saliva, though he isn’t sure how a teenage boy would react to that, especially one as… special, as Peter.

Natasha, it seems, also believes that something is off with Bubba, which is the only reason why this investigation on the man has gone on for as long as it has with no leads. The woman herself seems to be using every tactic in the book on ways to get Bubba to spill things he doesn’t want them to know, to no avail. Tony has been doing quite the same thing with Peter, trying to get more information on the man. He has tried directly asking him, lightly nudging him into conversation on Bubba, even slipping his name suddenly into conversation in attempts of getting a shocked reaction from the boy. Nothing works. The only reaction Peter seems to be willing to show in regards to the man is pure admiration.

As of this morning, Fury has officially declared that they must stop the investigation with Bubba and let the man go. There isn’t anything he can do for them anymore, and has agreed to be held in witness protection for an indefinite amount of time, until they can be sure that HYDRA will not be looking for him.

Natasha had told the man the news this morning, asking once more if there is anything else she needs to know before he is let go, and Bubba had given no information but had made one last request.

He wants to say goodbye to Peter.

Tony had shot up when the man said that, but did not bother to try and deny his request. He has learned by now that any opinion he has in what is best for Peter is to be ignored, despite the fact that he is one of the only people who Peter can now comfortably be in a room with.

Natasha had informed the man that they would do what they could to make his request happen, and had gotten up and left the room without another word.

When she stepped into the observation room, neither person spoke for a few moments.

“Is this the part where you try and convince me that he shouldn’t see Peter?” Natasha eventually asked.

“No point,” Tony said. “It’s not like you ever listen.”

“I always listen,” Natasha had said. “I always consider what you have to say. It just seems to always be opposite that is best for SHIELD.”

“Why’s that a bad thing?” Tony had mumbled, getting up to leave.

“What do you think?” She had asked, putting a hand on his arm to stop him from exiting.

“SHIELD doesn’t benefit from Bubba saying goodbye,” Tony said. “You got nothing out of their last interaction, you won’t this time.”

“But what about Peter? Would it benefit him, being able to say goodbye to the one person he loves?”

Tony sighed. He just cannot seem to shake that feeling, the one that _screamed_ danger, that dwelled in his chest and seemed to be ripping him open from the inside to escape and prevent any harm from being inflicted onto Peter.

“It’s up to you,” he finally said, brushing off the woman’s arm and walking out the door.

That was this morning. As of right now, SHIELD has not yet made a decision on whether they would honour Bubba’s request. Tony has not told Peter, and will not tell him until the decision is set in stone.

He seems to be in a good mood today, Peter. The boy is sitting cross legged on the floor, back against the wall, lightly brushing his fingers over the fluffy pillow that Tony had placed in his lap. He is staring ahead, but seems present, unlike most days.

Tony has, over the past few weeks, been getting slightly better at reading the minuscule shifts of Peter’s face that determine how he is feeling. His face often remains blank, but as Natasha had mentioned on that first day in the cell, if you look deep enough Peter shows small signs of emotion.

Today, he is calm, breathing steadily and as his gaze stares at the wall opposite him, while Tony does some paperwork at the island dividing the kitchen and the living room where Peter is sat. The boy’s fingers are moving in a steady rhythm, brushing the fur on the pillow in a downwards motion. Tony wonders what he’s thinking about, in that intelligent, messed up brain of his.

Another thing Tony is worried about, of course, is Peter’s living situation. With Bubba leaving, there is nothing else for Tony to worry about other than Peter himself. When he took Peter out of his cell that day he had not been thinking about the long term. It has been a few weeks and Peter is still living in his apartment, on his floor. He had expected SHIELD to intervene by now, taking Peter away to a place where Tony would never see him again. How would he be able to stop it, if that were to happen, without becoming an enemy of SHIELD?

However, time keeps passing, and SHIELD does not come. Is Tony expected to keep Peter here indefinitely? His apartment isn’t exactly child proof, though Peter isn’t your normal child. Where would they even put him? By taking him in all those weeks ago, has Tony agreed to look after him forever?

He thinks about how he would feel, should someone come tomorrow and take Peter away from him. The pit that grows in his chest whenever he thinks of Bubba returns, thinking about this scenario. He can’t let Peter leave, where would they take him? He doesn’t understand how the world works, it isn’t like they can throw him into any kind of foster home with the problems he has.

No. Peter will stay here. Tony can deal with any kind of consequence that may arise.

It’s a team job, and Tony is silently grateful that the rest of the Avengers have taken well to Peter being in the Tower. Bruce has taken it upon himself to read up on things they should be teaching Peter. It is obvious by now that Peter cannot read much, only words he may have come in contact with many times in his upbringing, but for the most part he simply cannot read.

Together, Tony and Bruce have been making a plan on the best way to teach Peter things that he should have been taught over a decade ago. It’s difficult, because the boy is very intelligent. He picks up on things fast, he has proven to be quite capable in electronics, based off of his catch of Tony’s work in the lab. That was college level knowledge, and Peter knew the consequences of the faulty casing. Yet he most likely does not know the damn alphabet in its entirety.

Tony has, though he would never admit it aloud, been reading a lot of parenting books. They range from books on how to deal with toddlers in their trouble two’s, how to assist your teenager as their bodies develop, how to support your child who has been through trauma, etc.

They are covering all grounds here. Peter is a teenager with exceptional intelligence but the social skills of a toddler. What else are they supposed to do?

A soft noise breaks him out of his thoughts. Peter has stopped petting the pillow in favour of pinching his nose quite hard. His body convulses a few times, and Tony is about to get up from his spot at the table when Peter suddenly stops and begins petting the pillow as if nothing had happened.

Was he… sneezing? The lightly pink colourization on the tip of the boy’s nose seems to point towards that, and it seems like Peter had pinched his nose shut so that he would not make any noise. Tony debates bringing it up, knowing the danger that covering a sneeze that way can do, especially to the ear drums.

He decides against it, but does get up and move over towards the couch in the living room, where he will be closer to Peter but far enough away that the boy will not feel cornered, especially as he has closed himself in the corner.

Peter does not react to Tony entering the room, but shifts his body ever so slightly so that he is more alert to the presence in the room, a shift so small that only Tony, who had been watching closely, was able to detect.

“Hey buddy,” Tony says gently, sitting on the edge of the couch. “Are you hungry?”

Peter doesn’t like to answer questions like this, and Tony knows it. However, the parenting books state that choices matter, especially to children who feel their choices do not matter and will not be heard. He asks questions such as this all of the time, despite the fact that Peter never answers and they already have a very set in stone schedule for meal times. Peter cannot afford to miss a meal, not at the malnourished state he seems to be unable to fall out of.

Tony cannot just give him a lot of food, as it still makes the boy sick, so they have simply changed methods and have been giving Peter less food more often, which seems to be a much better way for the boy to keep everything down.

Not hearing a response from the boy, Tony sighs. “Alright, well the time for your next protein shake is in an hour, so we’ll just wait if you’re not hungry now, hm?”

Peter blinks and nods slightly, whispering, “Yes, Tony.”

“Do you want anything?”

That’s a big issue, as well. Wanting. Peter doesn’t seem to understand the idea of want, barely understands the concept of _need_ , as he has been so dependent on other people to decide everything for him. Once again, the parenting books suggest prompting the child to speak their needs and wants, letting them know it is okay for them to have these feelings.

Peter usually doesn’t respond to the questions he doesn’t understand. At the beginning, he used to look awfully confused, perhaps scared of not knowing the correct answer. By now, it seems the boy has learned that Tony will not punish him if he does not answer, so he simply ignores the questions that he cannot understand.

Today, however, it seems that Peter wants something. After Tony asks the question, Peter’s eyes shift slowly from its resting spot on the wall opposite him over to where Tony is perched on the couch. His eyes lift upon Tony’s face, reading him, most likely determining if this is a trap or not. Tony tries to make his face as friendly and unthreatening as possible, and it seems to work, as Peter does not avert his gaze.

“You can ask for anything you want, Peter,” he lightly prompts the boy again.

“Bubba?” Peter asks in a soft, barely audible whisper.

The one thing Tony can’t give him. The _one thing_ he wants, Tony cannot do anything about. Go figure.

He’s beginning to think that perhaps Peter’s hearing is better than they originally thought. Why else would Peter bring the man up on the exact same day that they had discussed the two meeting up again? Is this some kind of coincidence?

Tony sighs. “Remember what we told you? What Bubba told you?”

Peter’s face shifts into what can’t be anything but a pout. He doesn’t say anything, but his disappointment is clear. His eyes begin to travel back to the wall, and Tony can see the light leave them as he enters the dissociative world he seems to enjoy all too much.

“Hey, now,” Tony says, desperate to make Peter’s good mood stay. If he is in a bad mood, it will be even harder to get him to eat later.

“I know it’s hard for you, Peter,” Tony says. “Bubba is important to you, and being without him is very hard. I know.

“But you don’t have just him on your side anymore. You have all the Avengers, yeah? Clint, you like him, right? He brings Lucky over.”

Peter looks back over at Tony. “Doggy.”

“Yeah, the dog,” Tony says gently. “I know he likes you, too.”

“Tony?”

Tony blinks. “Yeah?”

Peter frowns, once again indicating that he has answered the wrong question.

“Use your words, Peter, remember?”

Peter’s eyes squint, upset at being told the thing he hates most. Tony is trying, he is, but Bubba has over a decade of experience with this kid, and Tony cannot quite understand Peter’s one word questions the way the other man does.

“Tony? On my side?”

“Oh,” Tony says. “Yeah, I guess I am, kid. I’m on your side right now more than I’m on anyone else’s side, so that means I’m here to stay, right?”

Peter doesn’t respond, processing the words Tony had just told him.

“Look, Peter,” Tony said. “I don’t think Bubba will be here for much longer. He won’t be able to see you, for a long, long time, maybe ever again. Not because he doesn’t love you, or whatever, but for reasons that have _nothing_ to do with you, okay?”

Peter is growing more and more confused. He can’t understand what Tony had just told him, he doesn’t understand that the world is bigger than himself and Bubba because for him that is all the world is.

“But I’m here now, yeah?” Tony says, trying to use Peter’s previous question to his benefit. “I’m here for you, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, Bubba and I want the same thing for you, buddy.”

Peter looks up eagerly. “Same?”

Tony smiles. “Yeah. We want you to be safe and happy, Peter.”

Peter blinks. “Bubba say…,”

“Bubba doesn’t know us, Peter, he doesn’t know what I want,” Tony explains. “You don’t need Bubba, okay? You have me. You have Clint, Bruce, all of us.”

Peter doesn’t reply, but his good mood remains for the rest of the night.

If only Tony had known the damage he had done with that conversation.

* * *

He wakes up with a jolt, a sudden feeling of unease filling his whole body as he detects an unknown presence next to him. Disoriented, he feels movement underneath the covers, reaching out and yanking his pyjama pants down and thinks, for a brief second, that perhaps Pepper has surprised him.

Distantly, he realizes that Pepper knows not to wake him up like that. He has night terrors, is prone to lashing out in his sleep. He knows Pepper. This is not Pepper.

He jumps, kicking out and hopefully making an impact on his attacker as he calls for his suit.

A small whimper is made from under the covers, and Tony has enough time to stumble out of bed, his heart racing, as his suit falls around him like a safety blanket.

As he pulls the covers off of the bed to reveal the completely naked body of Peter, Tony freezes in his tracks.

He doesn’t know what to say. Why was Peter here? Why is he naked, why was he pulling down Tony’s pants, why why why-

Another whimper is heard in the now eerily silence of the room, startling Tony out of his shocked, frozen state.

“Peter?” He says hesitantly, feeling extremely uncomfortable and sort of like he would rather jump out of the window than have a discussion with the boy who he had just found underneath his bedsheets.

Peter doesn’t reply, though has moved off of the bed to kneel on the ground, eyes locked on the floor. From what Tony can see from his face, the boy seems petrified, as if he had just found Tony in his bedroom, under his sheets.

“Peter, what are you doing, kid?” Tony says, his voice shaking.

“I-I,” Peter tries to explain, still looking down at the ground. “You say…,”-

“What could I _possibly have said_ that made you think you could do this?” Tony says, his voice raising on its own accord.

“B-Bubba,” Peter sobs out. “You say, you say ‘same thing’, I’m sorry Sir, sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, Spider is sorry, Sir.”

Peter is now in hysterics, having a full on meltdown on Tony’s bedroom floor while completely naked, sobbing out apology after apology, begging not to be punished.

Tony barely hears him, processing what the boy had just told him. He had told Peter what? That him and Bubba want the same thing for the kid. If this is the conclusion that Peter had come to after Tony had told him that, then that means that-

“JARVIS, don’t allow anyone to release Bubba from his room.”

“I’m sorry Sir, Mr. Spencer was escorted out of the building at ten thirteen last night by an unidentified SHIELD agent,” JARVIS replies.

Peter’s sobs get even louder after that. They don't stop until hours later. 


	10. cold compresses and unwanted offers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter: child sexual assault (heavy) and violence, dehumanization, self harm in the form of skin + hair picking, and dissociation.

Bubba, for lack of a better word, disappeared. From what Tony could find, it seems that HYDRA had infiltrated the security system of the tower just enough to not trigger the alarm that was meant to sound when an unknown source came onto the floor where they had been holding the man. By sending in a single agent, there was not much else that they had to have done to stay under the radar enough to quickly and safely extract Bubba from their clutches.

Had they known that Tony was close to figuring things out, or was it merely a coincidence that the man slipped right through Tony’s fingers the exact moment that he had come to the conclusion? Logically, of course, HYDRA must have known that Peter would be able to stay silent on this matter for long. They know the boy better than anyone, having raised the damn kid, they must have foreseen that Peter would let slip what Bubba had been doing to him for… for how long?

Bubba claimed to have met Peter when he was a child, at the age of four. Had this been going on the whole time? God, Tony hopes not.

He thinks back to three nights ago, when he had awoken to Peter underneath his bedsheets. In his stress, everything seems to blur together, that whole night, but Tony remembers in full clarity the look of panicked confusion that had littered Peter’s face. He hadn’t understood why Tony was so upset, why the man had thrown him off the way that he had.

After the initial shock wore off, Tony had raced to the cell that Bubba had previously been secured in, Natasha and Clint close behind. He had asked JARVIS to keep an eye on Peter, calling Bruce down to make sure the kid didn’t do anything stupid in his meltdown.

He hasn’t been back.

How is he supposed to face the kid, after what happened? He thinks back to the night he had taken Peter out of his cell to take a shower. The boy kept demanding, _insisting_ that he sleep with Tony, go to bed with Tony. Eagerly, even.

Instead of facing that problem, Tony had decided to be where he is needed the most, which was tracking down where the hell Bubba had vanished to. Here, in the lab, Tony can be useful, can be away from the concerned glances that the team keeps sending him, as if _he_ had been the one being hurt in this situation. No, this is where he is needed, and here is where he will stay.

Until now.

Tony had been receiving updates on Peter regularly, despite not asking for them. The boy had continued his meltdown for nearly six hours before Bruce had been able to calm the boy down, after Tony had stormed out. The boy, since his tears have stopped, seems to have entered another dissociative states, this time much stronger than the others and Bruce seems to be mostly unable to tear him out of it.

Thankfully, Peter had been cooperative to certain things, such as drinking and eating whenever he was urged to, and followed Bruce for regular bathroom breaks. However, he doesn’t seem to be present at all, Bruce had claimed. He remains eerily still whenever Bruce is in the room, though when he is alone he has remained his habit of roughly scratching at the back of his neck, sometimes even pulling out pieces of his hair. More than once Bruce had arrived back to find Peter’s hand covered in his own blood, having to gently clean the wounds for the boy.

Peter had not mentioned Tony since he had disappeared, but he has not said anything at all, other than whispered responses to whatever he has deemed a direct command from Bruce. Tony, despite avoiding the boy at all costs, wonders what he is thinking about in that messed up head of his.

Yesterday morning, Tony had narrowed a few places he believes Bubba may have been hiding out in. JARVIS had accessed security cameras all over the city, trying to find any place they could have hidden out. There had been no flights out of the state that have not been approved, thanks to the intel Rhodey had sent their way. With patrols at the boarder, there is no way they could have managed to leave state within the time frame they had left the Tower.

Steve had left to one possible location, while Natasha and Clint headed out to another. Tony had argued that he could go with them, though Fury had shot that down immediately.

“If you think for a second I am going to let you leave this tower after being responsible for all of this shit in the first place,” Fury had pointed threateningly his way. “Then you are an idiot.”

So here Tony is, sitting in the lab doing anything he can to locate the man. Without being allowed in the field, however, there isn’t much he is able to do at the moment. Instead, he is keeping all communication with the team open while he works on anything and everything to keep his mind occupied, and that is where he plans to spend the foreseeable future.

Or, it was, until Bruce contacted him and told him that he is needed back on his floor. After weakly trying to protest this, telling Bruce that he is definitely the last person that needs to be with Peter right now, Bruce continues to insist.

Peter is sick. Extremely, by the sound of it.

“Why didn’t we prevent it from getting this bad?”

“Tony, he had been hiding it very well,” Bruce said over the intercom. “I noticed him sneezing a few times, very quietly, but I figured it was because of the tears.”

Tony thinks back to before the… incident. Peter had been sneezing, hadn’t he? Tony faintly remembers making a note to have a conversation with the kid about plugging his nose as he sneezed.

“Why do you need me there? Aren’t you the doctor?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor, Tony,” Bruce sighs. “He’s delirious, his fever is… it’s bad. If it wasn’t for his abilities, I would be worrying about the state of his long term brain functionality.”

“What can I do about that?”

“I think it would be good for him to have someone there for him, as a comfort. He’s scared, Tony.”

“He’ll be more scared with me there,” Tony says. “He thinks…,”-

“There’s a lot of things that Peter thinks that aren’t true, Tony,” Bruce says. “He’s confused. If what we think is going on is true, then Bubba used their connection to abuse Peter. He’s the only person who has ever shown gentle care to Peter, he”-

“Gentle care?!” Tony shouts. “He fucking raped him! Who knows how many times!”

“I know,” Bruce says. “I know, Tony. But in Peter’s mind, he had someone who loved him in a place where nobody did. He likely is associating your kindness towards him as”-

“Yeah, I’ve figured that out, thanks.” He takes a deep breath as he counts down from ten. “He doesn’t need the reminder of that right now.”

“He’s just a kid,” Bruce says. “He’s a kid who is running a high grade fever, he’s delirious. He needs someone there for him.”

“You’re there,” Tony points out.

“Someone he has a connection to,” Bruce states.

“Someone he wants to have sex with,” Tony rebuts.

“He likely doesn’t know what parental affection is supposed to look like,” Bruce claims. “He needs you to show him.”

“He tried to-to…,”-

“I know,” Bruce says gently. “I’m sorry that you had to experience that, Tony. But you can’t hold it over his head.”

“I don’t blame _Peter,”_ Tony argues.

“No,” Bruce agrees. “You’re blaming yourself. You didn’t ask Peter to do what he did, and he doesn’t understand why you didn’t want it. You remind him of Bubba because you treat him the way Bubba pretended he was.

“Peter will never be able to differentiate the difference between the two unless he has someone to show him what a parent should be,” Bruce finishes.

Tony sighs. He knows that Bruce is right, though there is a voice in his head that screams that he is not the right person for the job. That he will only ruin any chance Peter has at recovering. Look at the way he ran out on him when the boy needed him most. Starks were not meant to be parents, let alone parents to children like Peter. The kid needs someone gentle, someone patient, someone Tony cannot be.

Despite knowing this, Tony also knows that Peter has run out of most of his options. If Tony is what he needs right now, then the man will be there for him. At least until they can find a better alternative.

“I’ll be up in a few.”

* * *

Even running a fever higher than Tony has ever seen, Peter is still fighting sleep.

He lays on his bed, a spot Tony has never seen him use before, indicating Bruce had likely lead the boy here and Peter hadn’t the energy to move away. His eyes flutter open and closed every few seconds, as if the fever were pulling him desperately under but all of his conditioning at HYDRA is fighting just as hard for dominance.

Every time his eyes open, Peter’s gaze slowly shifts around the room, the same way it always does, though this time it is glazed and unaware of the company, his eyes looking through Tony as if he were a ghost. He is covered in sweat, his hair soaked and plastered to his forehead, his clothes looking as if he had just jumped into a pool.

He must think he is alone, as his lips move slowly, trying to form words that his parched throat is unable to get out. Nothing urgent, nothing Tony has become used to hearing from the boy. It is as if Peter were trying to talk to himself, to comfort himself as he goes through whatever pain the fever is bringing him.

Tony moves closer to Peter, holding the cold compress that Bruce had shoved in his hand. He stays as far away from the boy as he can, arm stretched out to place the compress against Peter’s forehead.

The cold startles the sick child, his eyes which had just fluttered shut popping open with a small gasp. He looks around the room blearily, this time his gaze landing on the outstretched arm in his line of vision. Peter follows the arm up until his eyes plant onto Tony’s face, searching for familiarity in the man’s features. In his fevered frenzy, he can’t seem to identify the man, but he does not fight to get away.

The radiant heat from Peter’s body is melting the cold compress with extreme speed, and the condensation that has been created causes a single drop of water to fall directly into Peter’s eye.

The boy lets out a pathetic whine, long and desperate, as his eye instinctually closes from the contact. He begins mumbling to himself again, his arm reaching up lazily to flit Tony’s hand and the cold compress in it away.

“Hush,” Tony whispers. “You need this so you don’t overheat.”

Peter freezes at the noise, seemingly not in fear. His eyes open once more and he looks directly up at Tony. “B-Bubba,” he whispers, his hand rubbing at the eye which had just been hit by the water.

“It’s Tony, Peter,” he whispers, desperate to not be associated with that scumbag ever again.

Peter hums slightly. “You go.”

“I had other things to do,” Tony says.

“Sir Tony… he say he wants like you,” Peter whispers.

“I’m not Bubba, Peter,” Tony says again, pressing the compress back onto the boy’s forehead.

“Bubba,” Peter mumbles. “You g’nna?” As he says this, Peter’s legs begin to spread open slightly, presenting himself to Tony. Thankfully, Bruce has dressed Peter in clothing that both covers him up and keeps him cool, a design Tony created long ago. He silently thanks himself for ever creating such thing.

“No, I’m not,” Tony says. “Nobody is ever going to do that to you again, Peter. I’ll make sure of it.”

Peter moves his head sluggishly in what seems to be a nod. “O’ly Bubba.”

“ _Especially_ not Bubba.”

Peter frowns, but doesn’t seem to want to get clarification. Instead, he seems to have interpreted that conversation as indication for him to get up. With much effort, Peter places his hands on the bed and begins pushing himself into a sitting position, moaning slightly as he does.

“No, no,” Tony says, placing his hands on Peter’s shoulders to gently guide him to lay back down. “You need to rest as much as you can, kid. I’m betting your lack of rest is what kick started this little flu in the first place.”

“G’nna die,” Peter mumbles, head thrashing against the pillow.

“I won’t let you die,” Tony says. He grabs another cold compress out of the cooler Bruce left at the bedside, knowing how fast they are melting around Peter’s skin.

“T’ke care of me,” Peter whispers.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I’ll take care of you.” He presses the new cold compress onto Peter’s forehead again, letting the cold hit the boy.

Peter whines again, long and desperate. “Bubba, d’nt feel good.”

He sounds like a little kid, scared and looking for any kind of comfort they can. The way a child would cry for their mother and seek her care when they are sick, Peter is calling out for Bubba. The man who hurt him in such a cruel and manipulative way that Peter doesn’t even understand that he had been hurting him.

“You’re okay,” Tony says, not knowing what else he should be saying.

“Not,” Peter mumbles, seemingly struggling to breathe fully, his breath escaping him in wheezing pants.

“Bubba,” Peter whines out again, hands reaching towards Tony making grabbing motions. “Gimme.”

“What do you need, Peter?” Tony says, wincing again at the being called that name.

Tears fill up Peter’s eyes as the boy lets out a frustrated cry. “No, no, Bubba!” He calls out, panicked. “You hav’ta, I d’nt wanna… d’nt wanna go, I’ll be good boy, I will, please Bubba, I love you!”

Rage fills Tony’s entire body as he contemplates what Peter is saying, _begging,_ for. What does he want? There must be something that the kid is seeing, some form of feverish nightmare that is playing on in his head, perhaps a flashback. Where does he think he is? What is he so desperate for Bubba to do for him.

Knowing he is not going to be receiving these answers in Peter’s current state, Tony hums gently and brushes the wet hair off of Peter’s forehead, shushing the boy gently.

Peter’s delirious speech cuts off slowly, his body calming down minimally as he basks in the small comfort that he is receiving.

“That’s it, buddy,” Tony whispers as he continues stroking Peter’s hair back, moving the cold compress to the boy’s neck. “Just calm down, you’ll get better in a few days, I promise.”

“M’sorry, Bubba,” Peter mumbles.

“Don’t be sorry, Pete,” Tony says. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, okay? All you need to focus on right now is staying in this bed until you feel better.”

“Better?” Peter says, his eyes fluttering shut once more.

“Yeah,” Tony confirms. He keeps stroking back the boy’s hair, hoping that maybe if he keeps it up, Peter will actually fall asleep and stay asleep.

“You’ll love me, when Spider is better?” Peter’s voice is barely audible, so quiet that the boy must be just on the verge of losing consciousness.

Tony frowns, choosing simply to hum is response, figuring that it will be good enough of an answer to appease Peter’s fevered brain.

He thinks about what Peter just said, the meaning behind it. What the hell does that even mean? Had Bubba only chosen to love Peter when he was useful to the man, making the boy beg for his love by offering favours? The second Peter had assumed it was Bubba beside him, he hadn’t hesitated before he opened his legs in silent offer. Or maybe, and Tony isn’t sure which option is worse here, Peter is simply unable to differentiate between love and sex. Maybe, to him, asking if Tony will ‘love him’ after he is better is Peter’s way of asking if Tony plans to have sex with him once he recovers.

Whatever the answer, Peter seems content with Tony’s affirmative hum, and his head finally sinks into the pillow as he allows sleep to overtake him, guided by the gentle touch of Tony’s hands playing in the matted, dripping mess that is his hair.

It was bound to happen eventually, given the lack of sleep the boy had been having for who knows how long. If Tony was to guess, Peter had been so dependant on the drugs to help him sleep that he seems to be unaware of _how_ to fall asleep, without the drugs urging him under. With the kid’s senses, which everyday Tony have become more and more impressed with, it makes sense that Peter would be unable to fall asleep if he was jerked awake by some sound only his sensitive ears can make out. Perhaps Tony should make him some sound proof walls for his bedroom.

Either way, it doesn’t seem like Tony is going anywhere anytime soon, especially if moving might risk waking Peter from his slumber. Instead, he grabs another cold compress and presses it gently to Peter’s head, hoping that the fever will break. The last thing they need is to have a trip to the hospital wing.

So, for now all Tony can do is resign himself to this chair, watching as Peter twitches and shies away from the invisible horrors that are plaguing his weakened mind.

Now more than ever, Tony wishes he were able to do more.


	11. an important discovery

It takes two days for Peter’s fever to break. During that time, Tony rarely leaves his side, listening as the boy gets increasingly restless, tossing and turning as he quietly calls out for someone that is not there.

Other than pointless nothings, reassurances that Peter is safe, Tony does not talk to him again. Peter isn’t listening, or at least cannot understand the words that Tony says to him. No matter how many times he tells the kid, Peter’s feverish brain is unwilling to differentiate Tony from Bubba, choosing to fixate on the only comfort it knows. 

That’s okay. It pains Tony, tears into his gut like a knife every time Peter looks at him and calls him by a different name, the name of the man who did unmentionable things to the kid. More than once, Peter has sluggishly offered himself to Tony, unaware of his surroundings and truly believing that is why the man has stayed with him. 

Things seemed to take a turn to the better sometime in the middle of the night, as Tony lightly dozed in the chair next to Peter’s bed. By the time Bruce had entered the room the next morning, the fever was all but gone, leaving Peter’s face covered in cold sweat. 

They haven’t figured out what exactly was the cause of Peter’s illness. Whether it had been the shock of environmental change, or his body finally catching up to the lack of drugs in his system, Tony doesn’t know. The important thing is that Peter’s healing abilities seem to work with illness just as well as it does with injury. A flu like this could have knocked a normal human on their ass for weeks. 

Thankfully, Peter’s body seems to have recognized that it no longer needs to fight the illness as hard as it has, and decided to catch up on actual rest. The boy spends the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon sleeping, no longer trashing and calling out in hysteria. 

It is early evening by the time Peter’s eyes flutter open, looking much clearer than they had during the past few days. He blinks rapidly for a few seconds, looking around the room as if finally recognizing his surroundings. 

Tony watches the exact moment Peter realizes that he is not alone. The boy, while already still, freezes any possible movement he had been making. His eyes slowly drift over to the body sitting next to him, trying to catch on to who it belongs to. 

“Mr. Tony,” Peter whispers, his voice questioning. Tony can’t really blame him. The last time Peter had been lucid and saw the man, he had been on his knees begging the man to… to what? To have sex with him? To rape him?

“Good to have you back, Pete,” Tony says. “You’ve been pretty sick.” 

“Sick?” 

“Yeah,” Tony confirms. “Had a pretty bad fever.” 

“Oh.” 

“You feeling okay, now?” He asks, knowing from experience that he likely will not receive a true answer. Peter doesn’t know what ‘okay’ is. His ‘okay’ is… is a nightmare, from the looks of it. 

“Yes, Sir,” Peter says, his eyes fluttering slightly, still being heavily weighed down from illness. “I am sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Tony says. He isn’t sure what the boy is apologizing for, whether for the events from the other night or for being sick in general. It doesn’t matter. 

Peter doesn’t respond, a common theme that Tony has noticed when the kid receives a response he isn’t used to. Tony is positive that apologizing for any slight mistake-for anything that he did that hadn’t been along with HYDRA’s plan- is something Peter had been forced to do. To avoid punishment, perhaps. It’s no secret that the people who work for HYDRA have a superiority complex; Tony is sure they found immense pleasure in seeing Peter beg. 

“You’re still a little sick,” Tony tells Peter. “It would be best to stay in bed for another day or two, but you can get up if you want to.” 

Peter blinks. “Stay in bed?” His eyes lift from where they had been frozen on Tony’s chest up to his eyes, hope shining through. 

Tony pauses. Peter hasn’t slept in his bed once since Tony had presented his room to him. Even before that, the boy had slept sitting up in that damn chair. When he found the kid, Peter had been asleep on what looked like an observation table you would see at a doctor’s office. He doesn’t have enough data, but if he had to make a prediction, Tony would assume that Peter only spent time on an actual bed, with a real mattress, when he had spent time with Bubba. 

It’s quite possible that Peter was forbidden from ever sleeping in a real bed, only allowed in one when he was being used by Bubba. If that is the case, then Peter likely thinks Tony’s comment means… 

“In bed,” Tony confirms. “Alone.” 

“Not allowed,” Peter mumbles, disappointment shining in his eyes as he looks back down to Tony’s chest. Tony has also noticed, over the time that Peter has been with him, that the boy’s favourite spot to look is right over the soft glow of the arc reactor. Perhaps that is because it is easier for Peter to focus on not making eye contact when he has something to focus on, or maybe he simply enjoys the light. 

“It’s allowed here,” Tony says, his predictions proven correct. “Here we sleep on beds.” 

“Fuel up,” Peter points out. 

Tony pauses. He faintly remembers teaching the kid that phrase, back in the cell. Back when Peter truly believed he did not need to sleep at night without forcibly being drugged. At the time, Tony had desperately been trying to get the boy to just _take a damn nap,_ but it seems Peter had listened and learned from what Tony had taught him. 

It has Tony pausing his thoughts. Not for the first time, he is struck with the terrible realization that Peter is the way he is, he acts the way he is, because he knows no better. The boy can’t remember a time when he _hadn’t_ been a possession of HYDRA. Children are so susceptible to the things around them, and if they are not taught the things they need to learn and grow, they will not be able to understand the way the world works. 

Peter is still a child. He knows one life style, one that has broken down every piece of him that makes him human, and rebuilt to fit the goals of HYDRA. He doesn’t know anything other than HYDRA, other than killing and training. Other than abuse. 

They have been working on teaching Peter the things he should have been learnt at school; social skills, language, etc. What they have clearly been neglecting is the simple things, the things that, if raised around people that love and care for you, would be second nature to them. When to sleep, when to eat, how to recognize the signs that you are not feeling well, Peter doesn’t understand. How could he, when his needs were never met? HYDRA kept the boy on a strict, regular schedule. He used the bathroom when they told him to, he received most of his nutrition through IV fluids. 

How do you teach someone things they are supposed to learn from infancy? 

“Exactly,” Tony says. “You’ll get a better rest if you’re on something comfortable, like a bed.” 

“With Tony,” Peter whispers. 

“ _No,_ buddy,” Tony says as gently as he can. “I’m not going to do that.” 

Peter’s brows furrow. “Why?” 

“Because you’re a kid, and you shouldn’t be having sex with grown men.” 

“Sex?” Peter’s eyes flit over Tony’s face, not making eye contact but searching for an answer. 

Fuck. He doesn’t even know the proper _name_ for it. He has absolutely no sex education, yet he is desperate, _eager,_ to have some sort of comfort. It makes Tony sick, thinking that Peter has been subjected to this kind of abuse, has formed an _attachment_ to the person who has subjected him to it, because it is the only caring affection he had been receiving. Who wouldn’t be eager for it, when the only time he receives a gentle touch is when… 

“Can I ask you something, Peter?” 

Peter blinks. “Yes, Sir.” 

Tony sighs at the title, but decides to ignore it this time. “Do you… Can you remember when Bubba first… took you to bed?” 

Peter frowns. “I-I, I do not…,” his eyes widen in slight fear, panicked at the idea that maybe he will not be able to answer Tony’s question. 

“It’s okay of you don’t remember,” Tony says. “Do you remember when you met him?” 

Peter blinks rapidly, shaking his head slightly. 

“That’s okay,” Tony repeats gently. “Was it happening before they started taking you on missions, or after?” He knows, from what Fury told him, that Peter had been in the field for as long as three years, if not more. 

“B-before?” Peter says questionably. His eyes move from side to side, as if trying to conjure up a memory for Tony. Before. That meant, at the very least, that Bubba had been abusing Peter since he was eleven. 

But he has known Peter since he was four. How long had he been grooming the kid before he decided to start assaulting him? 

“Mr. Tony?” Peter’s quiet, hesitant voice urges Tony out of his thoughts, and he looks down at the boy. His eyes have begun shutting in his exhaustion, currently staring up at the man with half open slits. 

“Yeah?” 

“When Bubba comin’?” 

He doesn’t tell him that Bubba is gone, and he doesn’t tell him that when they do find him, he has plans to single handedly rip the man from limb to limb. He doesn’t tell Peter that he will never lay his eyes on the man again, that Tony would sooner burn the tower down before subjecting Peter to one more manipulative encounter with his abuser. 

“I don’t know, Peter,” is what he does say. 

Peter lets out a pitiful whine, longing for the only person in the world that matters to him. 

In his desperation to stop the noise, Tony reaches out of brushes Peter’s loose curls off of his sweaty forehead. At the touch, Peter’s whine is caught in throat, replaced with a long gasp, but he does not shy away from the touch. In fact, the boy leans in slightly, encouraging Tony to keep going, to keep comforting him. 

He keeps it going until long after Peter is asleep. 

* * *

“You need to be careful,” is the first thing Tony hears when he opens his eyes. He isn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he must have, as his body is currently slouched in his chair while his hand remains buried in Peter’s hair, covered in the copious amounts of sweat and grease that is radiating off the boy. 

Natasha is standing at the door, hip leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest as she gazes at the scene before her. 

“I’m being careful,” Tony says. “I’m banned from the field, what else am I supposed to do?” 

“You need to be careful with him,” she clarifies, nodding towards Peter and the hand has just retreated from his hairline. “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing.” 

“I’m not playing anything,” Tony says. “Can’t a guy give some comfort to a needy kid?” 

“He wants more from you,” she says. 

“He’s not going to get it,” Tony snaps. “What, you think that lowly of me that you think I want to fuck a little kid?” 

“No,” Natasha says. “I know you would never do that, Stark. But this is a very fragile matter. Peter doesn’t understand why it isn’t okay.” 

“I’m going to teach him.” 

Natasha nods. “It’s going to be a lot harder than that.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Imagine being a child in his situation,” she explains. “Imagine the only touch you know being one that will hurt you, beat you and cut you open with no explanation. Anything you do wrong, you get punished. Even if you do it right, you’ll get punished, because that’s how they get things from you. 

“Then one day, someone starts treating you differently. They touch you gently, give you the affection you didn’t even know you were craving, were starving for. It doesn’t matter what he did to Peter, after that. He would do anything to keep it.” 

Tony pauses. “Did you…?” 

“No,” she confirms. “But if there were someone, like him… I don’t see how I would have been any different. You don’t know how awful being touch starved is.” 

Tony thinks to Afghanistan, to how lonely, how desperate he had been sometimes, for a kind touch. From Pepper, from Rhodey. He hadn’t even been alone. Yinsen had been there, giving him pats on the hand or back, encouraging him in his work.

“He’s going through puberty,” Natasha continues. “I’m sure the sexual abuse started long before that, but over the past couple of years he has likely started to respond to the stimulation. Sex feels good.” 

“You’re saying he likes it?” Tony asks. 

‘I’m saying it makes him feel good,” Natasha says. “In a place like that, you’re going to take anything you can get to make you feel good.” 

Tony looks down at Peter’s sleeping face, pondering what Natasha had just told him. It makes sense, that Peter would seek out something that felt good. He doesn’t know what is wrong about it, nobody had warned him of the dangers. Add in the act being alongside the only person who Peter loves, who he truly believes loves _him,_ takes care of him. Why wouldn’t he seek it out? 

“I tried asking him when it started,” Tony says. “All i got out of him was that it started sometime before he went out on missions.” 

“That could mean anything,” Natasha says. “We know they met when Peter was four.”

“Rapists groom kids for years,” Tony says. 

“Rapists groom kids for years so they can manipulate the child into loving them,” Nat says. “All it took Bubba was a pat on the shoulder and telling Peter he loved him for the kid to believe that.” 

“You’re saying it could have started when Peter was _four?”_

“It’s a possibility,” Natasha says. “They were cutting him open and injecting him with illegal drugs by then, what’s the difference?” 

“If that’s true, then…,” 

“Then Peter will never recover from this,” Natasha says. “He’ll get better, sure, maybe even eventually come to the conclusion that Bubba had hurt him. But he will never be able to maintain a healthy relationship.” 

“He doesn’t need to get married to live a good life,” Tony tries to argue. 

“I’m not talking about just a romantic relationship,” Natasha says. “ _Any_ relationship. He has bonded with you because you remind him of the person who he believes takes care of him, loves him.” 

“Should I be keeping my distance?” Tony asks seriously. If that is what Peter needs, he will do it. 

“Not now,” Natasha says. “You’re giving him a pretty good example of what a parent should act like. He may relate that to Bubba, sure, but in a year from now he may be able to differentiate between the two.” 

“So…,” Tony trails off for a moment. “So I keep acting the way I have been, before I found out about Bubba?” 

“Yes,” Natasha confirms. “Be a parent to him, if you think you are up for the job. You can’t half ass this, though. You’re either in or you’re out.” 

“I’m in,” Tony says immediately. 

“Good,” she nods. “Be his parent, then. He’s in various stages of development, mentally. You need to be covering all grounds, patient. If he doesn’t understand something that seems like second nature to us, you need to explain it to him. Give him examples of _why_ his behaviour is wrong.” 

Tony nods. “He doesn’t even now what sex is.” 

“Sure he does,” Natasha says. “Maybe not by the name, but he knows. You need to explain what it is to him. He likely will recognize a lot of the concepts but not the names that link them together.”

Tony nods, and Natasha does not continue. She looks on at Peter with an unreadable expression on her face. Perhaps she sees herself in him, Tony doesn’t know. 

“Have you made any progress?” He asks. 

“It was a dead end,” she states. “They’ve been placing fake coordinates around the city, trying to lure us in to buy them some more time. We only have another day or two before they stop boarder patrol, especially since SHIELD refuses to give them a reason why.” 

“We can’t just let him get away,” Tony argues. 

“We’re trying everything we can,” Natasha says. “We won’t let him get away.” 

Tony snorts. As if they have any choice in the matter. Without any good leads, and with the city stopping their patrols, Bubba could be halfway across the country by tomorrow night. 

“Can I get you something?” Natasha offers. “You’ve been sitting there for days. You stink.” 

Tony nods. “I wasn’t sure if I should be taking Pete to the hospital wing or not, and Bruce said to keep a close eye on him, so.” 

She nods. “I can watch over him, if you want to take a shower.” 

Tony hesitates for a moment before relenting. He does stink. “Call me if anything goes wrong. It shouldn’t, his fever broke this morning, but still…,” 

“I’ll let you know,” she says, lightly brushing his arm as he walks by. 

He takes his time in the shower, rubbing off days worth of grime and sweat. It’s crazy, what being in close proximity to a human furnace can do to the body. Once he is determined that he is as clean as he can be, he decides to make a coffee before he goes back to Peter’s room. 

He is just grabbing his mug from the shelf above the sink when JARVIS catches his attention. 

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Sir, but I have just received an anonymous message on your encrypted server.” 

Tony pauses. “How the hell did someone get access to that?” 

“I’m not sure, Sir,” JARVIS says. “But the footage seems to show a two men entering an apartment complex in Queens. My photo identification scan displays a 98.6% match to Micheal Spencer.” 

Tony nearly breaks his mug in his haste to put it down. When was the footage taken?” 

“Just an hour ago.” 

“Call Black Widow.” 

“She has already been notified, Sir, as well as the rest of the team. Captain Rogers and Mr. Barton are on route now.” 

“Screw that,” Tony says. “Tell them I’ll meet them there.” 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys i'm back!! i had major trouble writing this and was averaging about 100 words per week until last night. it's a shorter chapter but I hope it was worth the wait! 
> 
> MAJOR TW: rape of a child, in quite graphic explanation/detail. nothing is shown, but it is the focus of discussion in this chapter. also, death of a minor character.

Tony arrives at the apartment first. 

He doesn’t wait for backup, instead having JARVIS make a quick scan of the apartment and find which room Bubba is in. He has received numerous messages from the rest of the team, warning him to not to pursue the target, to wait for Rogers to arrive. He doesn’t listen. 

Once JARVIS locates the man, Tony quickly lifts his repulsors until he is just outside the room from the outside, breaking the window and moving inside. 

There are only a few people in the room, armed and shooting. Tony pays them no attention, and with the suit he is easily able to subdue them. He looks around at all the faces until his eyes land on Bubba. 

The man is huddling behind a couch in the corner of a room, only the top of his head and his arm visible, shooting at Tony with just as much passion as the others. 

“Use the darts, J,” Tony orders, and soon JARVIS has deployed enough sedative darts to hit every man in the room except Bubba. 

Tony isn’t an idiot. He knows that he would face severe consequences if he had killed the men, especially with the ongoing HYDRA investigation. These men are must more useful to SHIELD alive than dead, and Tony doesn’t really care if they are dead or alive. He only cares about Bubba. 

Once he sees that all of his team has been compromised, Bubba decides to use a new tactic. 

“Mr. Stark,” he says hesitantly, dropping his gun and raising his hands above the couch, still hovering behind it. “It’s not what it looks like, okay? You have to let me explain.” 

“Explain how you continuously raped a child?” Tony hisses through the mask, lifting his palm and aiming his repulsor at Bubba. 

Bubba hesitates. “He told you.” 

“He likes me,” Tony says, ignoring the pit in his stomach that forms as he says it. “Probably more than he likes you.” 

“That’s not true.” Bubba’s voice has lowered intro something different now, something that tells Tony that he has hit a nerve. 

“Sure it is,” Tony says. “He gets the care he needs without being abused.” 

“He _loves me,”_ Bubba says. 

“No,” Tony says. “I don’t think so, asshole.” 

Bubba lets out an angry sigh. “He would be _nothing_ with me, Stark. You think he’s bad now? Imagine how he would have been without me there to teach him.” 

Tony doesn’t let himself think about that. “When did it start?” 

Bubba tilts his head slightly, “I already told you everything. I was being honest.” 

“You weren’t being _honest,”_ Tony said. “You claimed to have no part in what they were planning, that they,”- 

“Nothing I said was a lie,” the man keeps going. “I left some things out, but who wouldn’t? It’s not my job to tell you about my personal interests.” 

“How did HYDRA actually comprehend you?” 

“I wasn’t lying about my work, Stark,” Bubba said. “When HYDRA approached me and gave me a chance to perfect my work, to see it come to life… I wasn’t going to pass that up. 

“I don’t care about one thing that HYDRA does,” he continues. “All I care about is _him.”_ Tony examines the man closely, watching as his eyes glisten as he speaks about Peter. 

“When,” Tony grits out painfully. “Did. It. Start.” 

“You’re going to kill me either way, why does it matter?” 

Tony, his palms still extended and aimed towards the man, lifts his repulsor slightly so that he can release a blast just over the man’s head. He does so, watching as Bubba’s body tenses up slightly at the impact above him. 

“Alright,” Bubba says, eyes squinting slightly in what he thinks is a defensive glare. “You want to know when it started? Because I’ll be honest, I had no intentions to do anything like that to him, not really… It wasn’t until I met him that I knew he was perfect, that he was mine…

“He was so small, so innocent. I knew what they were doing to him, what they planned to do to him. I had to make him mine, so I did.” 

“How old was he?” Tony snaps back. Not for the first time in his life, the man is glad for the suit that covers his body, if only for the fact that it is hiding just how badly his hands are shaking as they aim towards Bubba. 

“I couldn’t say for sure,” Bubba says. “I didn’t touch him at first, you know. I let him get comfortable around me.”

Tony’s eye twitches, and he finds his hand clenching around the gauntlet, urging him to just shoot the man and get it over with. He knows he can’t do that. For Peter’s sake, anything they can get out of Bubba will help them know where to begin helping the boy heal, in whatever way he can. 

It seems, though, that Bubba is purposely avoiding Tony’s question. After spending so much time with HYDRA, Bubba must know many of the procedures, must know that Iron Man would never have been sent into the field alone for a matter such as this. He knows that backup is on the way, and Bubba will have a much easier time convincing the team and SHIED as a whole than he would be to just Tony. 

“You seem bothered,” Bubba says, noticing that Tony has not spoken. In reality, Tony has been clenching his jaw so tight that if he were able to conjure a single thought that isn’t of how much he wants to blow the man’s head off of his body, he would be afraid of cracking some of his teeth. 

To make matters worse, Bubba has seemed to catch onto Tony’s barely controlled rage, and the man smirks slightly, all fear from before ceasing, as if he has realized that nothing he says will get him out of this situation, so he may as well make things worse. 

“How did he tell you, Stark?” Bubba asks quietly, tilting his head. “He can’t communicate his needs anymore than an infant can, not verbally. Not the way he can with me.” 

“It’s none of your _business_ how I found out,” Tony grits out, teeth still painfully clenched. 

“Did he…?” 

“ _Don’t.”_

“He _did,”_ Bubba says, his smirk getting bigger. He huffs out a small breath that seems to be a laugh. “See, Stark? This was never even about me. He _wanted it.”_

“Peter doesn’t know what the hell he wants,” Tony says. 

“He’s eager for it, he always has been,” Bubba continues, ignoring all of Tony’s warnings. “He always used to look forward to his time with me.” 

Tony has so many things that he could say to the man. He could tell him that of course Peter would look forward to it, as for over a decade it was the only thing he _could_ look forward to, the only thing he knew wouldn’t bring him the kind of physical harm that anyone else would. He could explain that Peter was so broken from what HYDRA had done to him that any kind of kindness would make the boy latch on to you. 

But he didn’t. He didn’t, because Tony knows that then Bubba would win. The man isn’t stupid, he knows that there are no more tricks up his sleeve to get out of this. One final thing he needs to secure his spot in hell is to confirm Peter’s feelings for him. He doesn’t need to know how Peter has been struggling away from him, that he has projected all of the feelings he has for Bubba straight onto Tony. 

He already knows. He saw Peter in that room, he saw how desperate the kid was for him to stay at the Tower with him. 

_Everything we did there, you can’t do here._ That is what Bubba had said to Peter. At the time, Tony had assumed it had to do with the rules that Peter had to follow, the expectations that he couldn’t understand were not being upheld at the Tower. 

Now, Tony thinks about it and his stomach flips. Bubba had been warning Peter, telling him not to do anything that would incriminate the older man, to throw away everything he had been attempting to cover up. He would have gotten away with it, had Tony not made the awful decision to tell Peter that him and Bubba _wanted the same thing from him._

Before Bubba could continue his mockery, the door to the apartment bursts open, falling straight off of its hinges as Steve kicks it down. Behind Tony, he can hear more movement, and he assumes whoever it is has jumped through the window that Tony had already broken. 

Shield up, Steve pauses in the door when he sees Tony standing in the room, his gauntlet raised to the only man still conscious. Bubba, however, has his eyes on the person standing behind Tony, his smirk not leaving his face. 

“Miss Romanoff,” he greets. “How lovely of you to join us.” 

“Iron Man,” Steve orders. “Stand down.” 

“Oh, come on Captain,” Bubba says. His eyes wander back to Tony, tone in his voice teasing. “We were just talking about Peter. You were asking me when it started, yes?” It is as if Bubba has gotten a burst of confidence, as if he was sure that now the rest of the team has arrived, they would be able to hold Tony back. 

“I can’t really pinpoint it,” he continues. “I started slow, you know? Worked in his mouth for awhile. There’s nothing sweeter than the mouth of an innocent kid.” 

“Don’t say another word,” Steve warns Bubba, slowly moving towards the man. 

“He seemed bored, at first, with what I was doing. He liked when I touched him after, he knew he would be rewarded if he was good for me. Didn’t even complain when I fucked him for the first time, he was just happy to be with me.” 

Without even noticing it, Tony has activated his repulsers. His aim not wavering from the man, the room is filled with the slight whirring noise that warns them of what is about to happen. 

“Tony, _no,”_ Steve says again, focusing his attention now on him. 

Bubba smiles. “It was nice, but I think the best was when I gave him first first orgasm. Kids can’t really enjoy it until puberty, you know? That’s when the hormones start kicking in, it’s when I really learned what a slut he is for”-

He cuts up abruptly as Tony sends his repulsor straight into the man’s chest. His body drops unceremoniously onto the floor with the others, just another piece of HYDRA scum. 

Steve sighs, but does not reprimand Tony for his actions. How could he, while he stood there and was also forced to listen to the man’s bullshit? 

“Feel better?” Natasha says as she comes up to stand beside him. 

His hands are still shaking underneath the suit. He thinks about what Bubba had just told him, had _mocked him with._

_Until puberty._

Bubba may be gone, Tony may have ensured that the bastard could never harm Peter again, but what comfort is that alongside the knowledge of what was done to him to begin with? Peter has had so many things taken from him, things that he can’t even understand. How is he going to react to the knowledge that Bubba is gone? As horrible as the things Bubba had been saying were, he had been telling part of the truth. Peter _adores_ the man. Sure, his feelings are a result from years of abuse and grooming, from latching onto the only comfort he can find. Besides, what is pain, to Peter? Tony is sure that Peter cannot remember a time in which he wasn’t in some sort of pain. From the evidence all over his body, HYDRA had mutilated the boy. 

Touch starvation can make anyone desperate, Peter is no exception. Of course the boy would have willingly endured the pain Bubba inflicted upon him, to get a small amount of comfort in a world where such thing were near extinct? 

Tony looks down at Bubba’s crumpled body, and feels nothing. In his head, in the fantasy he had created the second he found out what the man had done to Peter, killing Bubba would bring relief, a sense of justice. Instead, all Tony feels is this numb throbbing on the inside of his chest, that tells him that whether dead or alive, Bubba’s actions will forever live inside of Peter.

“No. I don’t.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he got what he deserves. 
> 
> i have gotten a request on tumblr to maybe write in peter's POV for a few chapters? to see what's going on in that poor little head of his. I think this is very interesting and if you are interested I might make some in his POV! let me know what you think!


End file.
